


stone in your water

by troiing



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Aromantic Character, Aromantic allosexual character, Bathing/Washing, Blindness, Chronic Illness, F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Powers, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Season/Series 01, Recovery, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: “Melitele.You’ve brought us to Nenneke,” Tissaia says, voice marred and muffled, far away.“Oh,” Yennefer breathes, grip slackening on Tissaia’s wrist. “That old hag.”Or, in protecting Tissaia, Yennefer sacrifices her own eyesight. While Nenneke searches for a cure, Tissaia is treated for dimeritium poisoning, and it quickly becomes clear that the road to recovery will be a long one for both of them.A mashup of book and TV canon, if you will (with bias towards show canon).
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 462
Kudos: 550





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal gratitude to Miriam (batard_loaf) for helping beta this one! Especially in the first chapter, where i was way too deep in my own head regarding the asthmatic episode. I've dealt with asthma long enough and regularly enough now that my approach to it is very... academic, personally.
> 
> Title from ["Water" by Bishop Briggs. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwbam4SGNRc)
> 
> Warning for: mentions and brief visuals of canon-typical gore and language.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prologue, of sorts.

Her voice is hoarse, her body weak, and Yennefer is nowhere to be found. So she moves, stumbling, steps uncertain. Twenty-two mages. She knows, without a doubt, that less than half survived. Fears that perhaps none of them have. She feels ill, and desperate. Desperation is not a feeling she knows very well.

She leans momentarily against a tree near the gates, barely registers the fabric on the other side until she trips past. When she does, she catches a glimpse of Coral—what’s left of her—and falls, heaving. She has nothing left but bile now, and the tears sting her eyes as she chokes.

Something is _wrong_ , she thinks, staring at the ground on her hands and knees, arms trembling, fingers digging into the dirt. She shouldn’t still be feeling the effects of the dimeritium; she should be up, finding them, _helping_ them. But that was dimeritium dust, not manacles, and she’s no help to anybody, least of all Coral.

Her entire body trembles as she wipes the corner of her mouth with her hand, then wrenches the glove off and flings it to the side.

When she’s back in control, she pushes herself up to her knees. Looks up at the trunk of a corpse for a long and quiet moment, as if this moment of silent reflection could give Lytta Neyd any semblance of peace.

The sorceresses, each one who had stayed out the battle, had been her students. They followed her here, many to their deaths. And destiny had not had so much as the courtesy of taking her with them. She'd have taken their places, if she could.

Would the Continent even thank them?

_My brave, foolish girls. Have any of you survived?_

But even if someone is out there to hear, the dimeritium blocks even this simple use of magic, the channelling of a thought across a thread of Chaos.

_The North is here._

* * *

Every undamaged surface of the fort at Sodden becomes an infirmary, with Sabrina and Triss among the patients. Three mages arrive with Foltest’s medics, no explanation provided, and Tissaia watches numbly as they treat the injured in a flurry of activity, Triss’ hand clasped in hers.

_Triss._

She’d been the least equipped of all of them for this. Not for lack of skill—no, she’d mastered control of nature and its elements, excelled in herbs and healing magic, and had always been a capable hand in a spar—but for lack of _will_. She’d never been the sort to cause harm. She had her strength, but she was far too soft for _this_. It’s why Tissaia had accompanied her to the battlefield, laid hands on her, echoed Yennefer’s assurances that the time had come.

Tissaia watches as they apply the poultice to Triss’ wounds. There’s a tightness in her chest, a heaviness; she breathes slowly and carefully through her nose, coughing as she exhales.

Triss’ eyes flutter open, and she groans a wordless complaint. Tissaia squeezes her hand, plucking at the corner of the blanket stretched over her body to straighten it; Triss’ eyes drag over to meet hers.

“Mm… You're here,” she mumbles after a moment, lips sticky and chapped.

Tissaia smiles, small and tight, reaching out to place her free hand on Triss’ cheek. “Of course I am.”

“Am I dying?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Tissaia replies, affecting condescension, trying to ignore the wheeze in her chest and the burr in her voice.

The corner of Triss’ mouth twitches just a little; she squeezes Tissaia’s hand back weakly, and Tissaia runs her thumbs across Triss’ knuckles and jaw. 

As Triss closes her eyes, the need to cough presses again at her lungs, so Tissaia withdraws, wrapping both hands around Triss’ near one and craning her neck around to cough several times into her shoulder. It’s getting harder to breathe. She glances down at Triss, finds concerned eyes trained on her, and Tissaia smiles again in a way she hopes is reassuring.

“I need some air,” she explains, but it must be written on her face, because Triss’ eyes flash again with worry.

“You need treatment,” Triss replies, clinging to her weakly as Tissaia moves to stand.

“Didn’t you hear, child?” Tissaia asks with her best effort at a flippant expression. (Triss does not seem convinced.) “Yennefer scorched most of the Nilfgaardian army. Just smoke in my lungs.”

“Tissaia…”

“ _Rest_.”

As Triss’ hand slips out of hers, Tissaia walks away and does not allow herself to look back. All she’ll see there is concern and fear, and she does not need her girls fearing for her sake.

Triss wins, though, just this once. Because before she makes it out the door, she hears the frightened command: “ _Help her._ ”

There’s no fending off the medic who follows her out the door at a trot, and there’s no more holding back the coughing fit that has her chest convulsing while she tries to maintain some semblance of control. She collapses against the stone wall outside, chest heaving as she draws in desperate breaths between coughs, the sudden truth of the situation striking hard and fast.

She can’t breathe.

She’s known girls with asthma before, and a small part of her recognises this for what it is: an asthmatic reaction to an irritant—and it must be the dimeritium, although that was hours ago now. She doesn’t have the wherewithal to wonder _why_ , though, only to force herself to breathe, just breathe, grasping for purchase against the wall as she bends, heart racing, vision blurry, hands trembling, her own raking breaths like a wail, a keen, a knell—she can’t breathe—she can’t breathe, she’s going to die.

“Your kit!” she chokes, reaching blindly for the man who followed her outside, but he’s beat her to it, already has his hands on a vial of some herbal concoction, which he scoops out to press between her lower lip and teeth.

She doesn’t resist; she can’t. Instead, she sucks her teeth, inhaling on a gasp as he wraps an arm around her midsection to drag her, stumbling, back inside and lowers her onto a pile of rags that barely passes for a bedroll. She counts down the seconds between each breath, gaping, gasping, trying to listen to the voices above her. In. Out. Her heartbeat is a din in her ears, her entire body inundated in the sound of her own wheezes. _In._ She forces the air out of her lungs, struggling against the blockage there, ending in another coughing spell. Her vision darkens as she struggles for the hidden clasps of her dress; her clothes have never felt so confining. Her fingers don’t seem to want to cooperate.

After what feels like an eternity, she’s hauled upright, given a mug that burns her hands, and ordered to breathe. The task is a little easier now, but not by much: takes the longest breath she can and holds it in for a moment, coughing it back up with a mouthful of phlegm.

She keeps breathing until the mug is changed out for another, a fresh waft of steam hitting her face as she heaves out a shuddering breath, a low, wet rumble forming in her chest with each inhalation.

She doesn’t know how much time passes before she’s able to breathe without rising, uninvited panic in every respiration. Her chest is still heavy—heavier, maybe—and it doesn’t come easy, but she lies back, closes her eyes, and counts slowly to three between each breath.

Eventually, one of the mages—a man she doesn't know, surprisingly, perhaps a druid—kneels at her side, pressing a hand to her chest to feel the rattle there. There’s not much sense of it, she thinks, through the stiff material of her dress, but she says nothing; he seems concerned enough, she won’t waste energy on a reproach. “What did you get into?” he asks curiously, a frown creasing his brow as he pulls his hand away, a flash of something unknown in his eye as he turns his palm up to examine it.

She sees it before he does, because she knows what to look for. Not enough to trouble even the most sensitive mage, really, but mixed with the soil encrusting the folds in the front of her dress, amidst the dust that comes away on his palm is a tiny glimmer of pale blue, barely a speck.

“You’ll want to wash that off,” she recommends in a brief moment of dark humour, tilting her head back, closing her eyes, and refocusing her attention on the depth and span of her breaths.

The sounds of the makeshift infirmary—the movement of the medics, the pained groans and sleeping breaths of the patients—do not make for a relaxing atmosphere by any means, but although Tissaia doesn't doze off, her mind does wander. She is prone neither to flights of fancy nor spans of meditation—there is far too much to be done for that—but the counting becomes a cadence, a tattoo, and she drifts, the count anchored firmly in her body and the larger part of her mind free to quiet itself, to roam.

After a while, a soldier bursts in, upsetting the organic flow of the room. Tissaia comes back to herself, pushing up to her elbows and peering across the room. Triss is asleep. Sunlight cascades in, silhouetting the soldier, making him seem too large.

“Another live one. Have you got room?”

“Not here. Gods, she's in a state.”

“Found her off to the west. Sure looks like she was part of the battle though,” the soldier replies.

“They should be finished clearing the—”

The medic's voice is drowned out as the door closes behind them, but in the moment when the soldier turns, Tissaia notices the corded ropes decorating the gown, the black hair cascading over his arm.

“Yennefer?” she asks aloud, hauling herself upright with none of her usual poise. She can breathe well enough again, she finds as she takes stock of the state of her lungs. (Even if she were not better, she thinks, nothing could keep her from making herself certain that Yennefer is alright.)

So she follows, heedless of any complaint from the medics and mage who remain behind.

* * *

_“Yennefer.”_

It’s her name that wakes her. In darkness. In flame. She blinks. Her eyes are heavy, but they must be open. She swallows hard, makes herself blink again. She can feel that, knows for all the burning of her eyes that her eyelids are most certainly moving against them.

“I can’t see,” she says, voice catching as she stirs, slowly coming to inhabit her body again.

“Yennefer,” the voice says again.

She’s in a man’s arms, against his chest. Chain mail. She does not know where she is, or when, or with whom. Doesn’t remember anything after the madness, the fire, the screaming. One moment, there had been heat, and Tissaia, and a cry in her throat as she channeled what little control she had into protecting the bitch who'd set her up for this.

“I can’t see,” she repeats, more desperate now. “I can’t see!”

She writhes; his footing falters, his grip shifts.

“ _Yennefer_!”

“ _I can’t see,_ ” she cries, and her throat is raw and hoarse already, her body all in revolt—she’s not sure if she screams it or not. She does know that there are hands on her. She does not know whose hands they are.

Frantic, she lashes out with both arms; in the same instant, her nails catch on the fine, stiff material of a woman’s dress, her elbow finds the man’s chest, and the arm supporting her legs slides away, her body tipping forward.

She’s on her feet for all of a half-second before she lurches sideways, directly into the woman’s body.

She does scream now—wordless nonsense as her mind and body react in tandem, Chaos swallowing her, the whole world tipping sideways, spinning. She doesn’t realise that she has latched onto the woman, the woman to her, until she lands on her back with a stabbing pain in her stomach and another body pressed haphazardly against hers.

“Yennefer. Yennefer. _Yennefer!_ ” The weight lifts away, and there are hands on her again, fingers curled behind her neck, brushing her shoulder.

Through the fog of panic, through her own screams, she finally recognises the voice. She cleaves to it, breathing deeply as her hands go searching desperately. One hand finds the wrist of the hand cupping her neck; the other, a thigh.

Her screams become panting silence, becomes a bare moment of shrill laughter as she realises that Tissaia is kneeling beside her.

“Tissaia.”

“Yennefer.” Tissaia squeezes her shoulder, then lower down her arm.

She breathes in, breathes out. Clutches Tissaia’s wrist and grits her teeth. The darkness of her surroundings is much worse than the wound in her abdomen. She’s felt far worse pain than this. “I can’t see.”

“I know. I heard you the first few dozen times.” Something about her voice…

“ _Bitch,_ ” she says, panting. She means it. She doesn’t mean it.

She doesn’t know what she means anymore.

Tissaia shifts forward, hand moving to Yennefer’s cheek, and their foreheads touch. Here, she can feel the gust of Tissaia’s quick, shallow breaths. Can hear her wheeze, and the crackling in her chest. And birds.

A portal. Of course.

“Where are we?” she asks, feeling panic begin to bubble up in her chest again as Tissaia’s brow leaves hers. With her hand still lying against Tissaia’s knee, she can feel that the other woman doesn’t move further than that. A small comfort.

“ _Melitele_.” This time it is Tissaia’s voice that catches in a mad laugh.

She feels fingers curl into her hair. Feels the wet that beads on her skin, rolling down along her cheekbone as Tissaia leans over again. Feels wayward strands of hair tickle her cheek as Tissaia sinks down suddenly, forehead to the ground beside her own.

“You’ve brought us to Nenneke,” she says, voice marred and muffled, far away.

“Oh,” Yennefer breathes, grip slackening on Tissaia’s wrist, reaching up to brush the tear that isn’t hers absently, wearily from her cheek. “That old hag.”

And feels nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yennefer is a dick, and the emotional roller coaster defies the laws of physics. In a sauna.
> 
> Tissaia's sick, guys.

Yennefer wakes in a strange bed with a searing pain in her abdomen. One of these things is more easily explained than the other.

She remembers the fight with Sabrina; remembers the apology after. What had happened to her? Sabrina was never the type to apologise; Yennefer strongly doubts she would after an intentional betrayal. That’s something to get to the bottom of, if she’s still alive.

She’d promised to find Tissaia, to help. Had gone to do so. She’d unleashed Chaos. She’d… she’d awakened, blind, being carried by a man who could only be a soldier, judging by the cold chain she’d been held against.

And she’d portalled here. To the Temple of Melitele, she recalls after a long moment of thought. A safe enough place, she supposes. Nenneke is only a bit of a hack. She’s had the gall to place Yennefer at the side of someone with a respiratory infection though, by the sounds of it; it had better not be contagious. Yennefer frowns, listening to the faintly rattling breaths for a long moment. A fit of muffled coughs comes almost as if on cue.

Belatedly, she remembers: she had not been alone when she arrived here. Tissaia should be here too.

She blinks, gazing blindly up at what she supposes is a ceiling, given the bedding beneath her, and wets her lips. 

“Tissaia?”

The person beside her heaves a sigh, and Yennefer is just trying to decide if she has the energy to put them in their place before a familiar, if marred, voice replies: “I’m here.”

Yennefer turns her head in Tissaia’s direction, brow knitted, frowning more deeply than before. “What the hell happened to you?” she demands.

“Nothing that should concern you,” Tissaia replies, sounding… bored? Why, the insufferable, irritating—

She doesn’t register that Tissaia has moved from her own bed until her weight settles on Yennefer’s, a cool hand touching her arm. Yennefer is not easily startled, and knows, objectively, that the only person this could be is Tissaia, but that doesn’t stop her heart from leaping into her throat, her hand from jerking away from the touch.

“Fuck, Tissaia, you can’t just—”

“I’m sorry.” She does sound contrite, but more importantly, Yennefer’s certain she’s never heard those words out of the woman’s mouth.

“Well. Another first,” she remarks, letting her head fall back, no longer bothering to look in Tissaia’s general direction. It’s pointless, after all.

“What?”

Her voice catches on the syllable, leading to a coughing spell that delays Yennefer’s response.

“First it was ‘please’. Now you’re sorry.” She feels somewhat vindicated in this, but it’s only skin deep. The cough is phlegmy, and it’s good that she’s moving the mucus, but the nature of the cough in and of itself is still troubling. Like it or not, she's worried.

“Yennefer, do you remember what happened? You’ve been unconscious for more than two days,” Tissaia says after a moment, in a tone like still waters, unreadable.

“You’re shitting me,” Yennefer mutters, as if this is some stupid joke. Deep inside, she knows it isn’t: knows that for all Tissaia’s manipulations, she wouldn’t lie about this, and really, it only makes sense. She had thrown everything into those flames, and a little dash of something more into protecting Tissaia.

She wonders, in the silence that follows her accusation, if Tissaia had felt at all bad for recommending that Yennefer sacrifice herself to save… whatever it was she was saving. The Continent. No small order; maybe they'll build her a statue. Unlikely. Anyway, the idea of dying isn’t so bad, considering recent decades, but being told by the woman who lectured you for twelve years on the importance of bottling your Chaos lest you die to _forget the bottle_ is a bit ironic, isn’t it? Bit of a non-starter, too, if it hadn’t been Yennefer she was speaking to. In more ways than one, probably.

“May I touch you?”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that,” Yennefer replies automatically, and is rewarded with a short gust of a breath that can only be a silent note of laughter. She can picture the roll of Tissaia’s eyes perfectly, the pinched corners of her mouth.

“Turn towards me,” Tissaia says after a moment. Yennefer does as she's bid, hating how quickly she impulsively obeys. “I’m going to touch your cheek.”

Yennefer closes her eyes, and tries not to be startled at the touch she knows is coming. Her blindness stirs anxiety she hasn't felt since she was a child; she prides herself in being unfazeable, unshakable, but this is new, and frightening.

“Look at me,” Tissaia bids quietly.

“What exactly am I looking at?” Yennefer asks bitterly, settling her head on the pillow as Tissaia's thumb brushes her cheek.

“You know what I mean,” Tissaia growls around the staccato flutter of fluid in her chest and throat.

“You really need to do something about that chest of yours,” Yennefer retorts, shooting Tissaia a false, wicked grin and hating that she can't watch her pretend not to notice.

Still, she opens her eyes, and Tissaia's fingers immediately move beneath her chin, guiding it. Her thumb caresses the apple of Yennefer’s cheek, traces its way gently up and around her eye socket to her brow and back down again. Somewhere, distantly, Yennefer notes that her hand is less certain than it seems, that there's a slight quiver in her touch. 

She makes a thoughtful noise, and again Yennefer pictures her expression: the knit of her brow, the draw of her mouth, the set of her jaw; the studious look she has always worn when something puzzling crosses her desk.

“So,” Yennefer says, swallowing against a knot that forms inexplicably in her throat as Tissaia’s free hand joins the first, cupping her face. This is business, she knows, but rarely in her life has she felt seen, wanted; beyond what is clearly little more than clinical curiosity, Tissaia’s touch is warm and kind—completely antithetical to the cold and calculating persona she so often displays.

“So?”

She’d almost forgotten. Yennefer sighs, shifts her gaze in the direction of Tissaia's voice again. Dresses her expression with a challenge. “Is the Archpriestess going to fix my eyes?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Tissaia says. “Nenneke seems confident enough, but I fear it's too soon to tell.” Trust her not to sugar-coat anything.

Yennefer sighs, closing her eyes. “And what of you, Tissaia de Vries? Renowned healer, Rectoress of Aretuza?” It's hard to be as venomous as she would like, with the damn woman's hands smoothing her hair, caressing. The touch is no longer one of clinical curiosity; it's comfort. Yennefer hates herself for being soothed by it.

“Because I cannot,” Tissaia replies, voice even and unreadable, but the audible rattle in her lungs reminds Yennefer that she is ill, that she is keeping something secret.

“Of course not,” Yennefer replies, and this time she does manage to instill venom into the words. Because she is blinded, and angry. Because Tissaia, damn her, can lie and keep secrets and still draw Yennefer in. Because she's one of the oldest and most powerful mages on the Continent and she can't heal one bloody set of eyes.

For a moment, silence passes between them. Tissaia draws away, but her near hand hovers over the material of the simple shift they've dressed her in, and Yennefer can trace the entirety of its careful journey from her face, down her shoulder, to her arm. And then, very quietly, giving Yennefer's arm a gentle squeeze, Tissaia murmurs: “You saved me, too.”

Yennefer manages a single note of mirthless laughter, focusing on the stab of pain it causes in her abdomen. “I suppose that makes us even.”

They spend the rest of their waking hours in uncomfortable, bitter silence.

* * *

The next time Yennefer wakes, It's quiet, only the sounds of distant movement reaching her ears.

She's been dreaming. She doesn't remember what it was about, but there's a lingering sense of discomfort, of dread. It takes a moment to remember she is blind, not locked in some pitch-black room.

Well, maybe it is pitch black, but she doubts that rather highly.

In her experience, there's always at least a little bustle at the temple, even in the late hours; when she was here in the past, there was always at least one patient in need of tending, and now is no different. As a result, she has little point of reference for the passage of time—except maybe her stomach, but it's hard to be hungry when you've been stabbed in the gut. It must be sometime during the day though, because Tissaia is not beside her, the sound of her troubled breaths notably absent.

Yennefer lies still and listens for a few minutes, but hears nothing. There are any number of places Tissaia could be, of course. Perhaps not even in the temple, though Yennefer doubts that strongly.

Filled with abject boredom and mild concern, she rises, wincing, pushing herself up with one hand, the other pressed firmly to the wound in her abdomen. She’s not sure entirely what she’s supposed to do from here; she’s been out of bed twice to relieve herself, and both times had been guided by an acolyte. She turns her head,trying to ascertain any sense of direction, fingers absently smoothing the bandages that hold a poultice in place against her stomach.

And then, in true Yennefer fashion, she quite simply begins walking, one hand outstretched.

Before she’s made it more than a few strides, she hears footsteps off to her right, followed by a sigh as a girl whose voice she recognises but whose name she doesn’t know comes running. “You’re supposed to be abed,” she scolds, and her hand lands on Yennefer’s arm.

She’s learning to steel herself for these touches when people are around, but she still jolts, temper flaring at the uninvited, unseen contact. She’s never been an anxious person, but if the idiots floating around this temple don’t learn to ask before touching, she’s going to go mad. “ _Don’t_ touch me!” she hisses.

The girl pulls back at the command, and Yennefer feels her presence sink away, hears the soft tread of her toe on the floor as she takes a small step back to balance herself. “Sorry,” she says, and she does sound it. (She’d better.) “You shouldn’t be up though, there’s still—”

“Where’s Tissaia?”

“Tiss—”

“The woman who came here with me, you—”

“I _know_ who you mean,” the girl replies, clearly in possession of a bit more spine than Yennefer expected. Good. If she doesn’t tolerate being pushed around so easily, it’ll be more satisfying to put her in her place. “She’s being treated.”

“I want to see her,” Yennefer says, a little petulantly, maybe. Truth be told, she doesn't know anyone else here well enough to be comfortable being alone.

Not that she'll admit to this.

And anyway, it's a new day (she assumes), with a renewed need to pick a bone or two (or fifteen) with her old mentor.

“She’ll be back soon,” the girl says, steeling her voice. “In the meantime, you should be _resting_ so your wound can heal.”

“I’m tired of resting. Take me to her.”

“I c—”

“Take me to her, or I’ll find her myself,” Yennefer says, turning her head and shooting a glare in the girl’s direction. Her hand goes out, arm bent, ready to grasp an arm extended to her as a guide, and the girl succumbs with a sigh, placing her arm beneath Yennefer’s splayed fingers.

She grasps it, settles into the position, and begrudgingly allows herself to be guided.

“What’s your name?” She doesn’t so much ask it as command it.

“Irina.” Her irritation is palpable.

“Irina. I’m Yennefer.”

“I know.”

“I see,” Yennefer says darkly, facing straight ahead.

As Irina guides her out of the room and down what must be a corridor (she decides this based on the way their steps echo in the smaller space), she tries to remember the layout of the temple based on previous visits, back when she’d first begun seeking a cure for her sterility. She’d spent a decent amount of time here, but in truth wasn’t terribly well-versed in the layout of the temple, or where precisely her bed might be in relation to anything else.

“Steps down,” Irina says after only a few score steps. They descend; Yennefer misjudges the bottom step, dizzying herself when she moves to take another step down and finds flat ground. The room feels open; she realises belatedly that they have arrived in the bathing chambers, consisting not only of a large pool for public bathing, but several smaller pools bored out for medicinal soaks, births, and the like. 

Yennefer can hear Tissaia coughing violently now. She frowns; the older sorceress sounds much worse than before.

As they push through a door, a cloud of hot, humid air and the sound of three heavy, even beats come rushing out of the room in tandem. She stands there for a moment, stock still, deciphering. They’re entering a sauna, of sorts. The fragrance of herbs is on the air, sweet violet and caltrops and other flora used for complaints of the lungs. Someone half-grunts, half-whines after the last sharp, staccato beat; judging by the rattling breath that accompanies it, it’s Tissaia. Belatedly, Yennefer realises someone is probably striking her back in an effort to loosen the mucus in her chest. Lying awake before, listening, it had seemed she was having difficulty moving it.

“Well, hurry up,” Irina mutters, giving Yennefer a little push in the right direction.

Yennefer has half a mind to turn her into a toad. Thankfully for both of them, another violent coughing fit starts up just as Irina closes the door, sufficiently distracting Yennefer from the thought.

“She’s supposed to be in bed,” says a woman's voice—Nenneke, she'd know it anywhere—just as Tissaia gags audibly on the phlegm caught in her throat. Yennefer winces. Not exactly charming, nor enjoyable to think on too much.

“She’s stubborn,” Irina says flatly.

Yennefer doesn’t have to see to know Nenneke is frowning. She doesn’t care.

“What are you doing to her?”

“Treating her, obviously.”

“Obviously?” Yennefer asks sardonically. “It sounds like you’re torturing her.”

“Go back to bed, child.”

Yennefer scoffs. “No.”

“You are both interrupting a healing session and hindering your own recovery by being here,” Nenneke says evenly. “You’re a grown woman; I’d be satisfied to finally see you act like it. Take her away, please, Irina.”

“I’m not leaving,” Yennefer says, a warning in her voice.

“No one here is obliged to tend to your wounds or hers, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

And that’s just like Nenneke, isn’t it? Yennefer actually laughs at this, some of her anger diffused in dark humour. After a moment, she says, idly: “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I can’t kill you.”

“Do I have no say in the company I keep?”

This voice is Tissaia’s, and makes Yennefer stop cold. Her voice is hoarse, weak, unsteady. For a moment, Yennefer wrestles with her emotions: anger and fear and concern all bubbling beneath the surface. She tamps them all down, adopts a cavalier tone, says:

“Ah good—you’re not dead after all.” A brief moment of silence follows, and it’s all she needs to turn her tone to one of command. “Where did you go during the battle, Tissaia? What happened to you?”

She stands there for a span, listening as Tissaia coughs weakly, clearing her throat. The others in the room seem to follow suit.

“Might we finish this later, Nenneke?” Tissaia finally murmurs, and Yennefer can hear her voice catch on the words even from across the room.

Irina stirs beside her as Nenneke makes a disapproving noise, but there’s a rustle of cloth; a few steps, and Nenneke brushes past.

“Don’t breathe too deeply, child,” she says cryptically. “Your wound is deep.”

While Yennefer frowns, puzzling over this warning, the door shuts behind the two women.

For a span, neither Yennefer nor Tissaia speaks. Yennefer might doubt Tissaia’s presence, if she couldn’t hear her breathing. As Tissaia coughs again, weakly, she stands there, focusing on the smell of the room. They’re diffusing medication, an herbal concoction of some sort, with the hot, moist air of the room—that much she’s already ascertained. With careful focus, she picks out more of the herbs involved in the remedy.

There’s nothing in the concoction solely intended to ease a cough; there is, however, a familiar, rarely-used herb mingling with the others. One known to _cause_ a cough. Her frown deepens.

“So,” she says at last, stock still and staring sightlessly out across the room. “Inducing a cough. That’s rather an aggressive treatment, don’t you think? I’m no healer, but as I understand it, our bodies are more than adequate at doing that without outside help.” She’s trying to sound glib, but as much as anything, she knows her tone comes out annoyed.

She isn’t just annoyed. She’s furious, and she’s not even entirely sure why.

“As you said,” Tissaia replies, voice small despite the steel in her tone, “you are not a healer.”

Yennefer snorts, but offers no quarter before repeating, evenly: “ _Where_ did you go?”

“To Fringilla, obviously.”

For all that her voice catches, she says it like Yennefer just asked the stupidest question she’s ever heard. The anger flares up again at that, and this time she knows why. She has half a dozen reasons to be angry about this revelation, good ones too.

“Because that was a clever idea,” she says suddenly; it’s the only phrase she can formulate, at the moment.

“You don’t think I could have beaten her?” Tissaia questions almost impishly.

“Well, seeing as you didn’t,” Yennefer replies, tilting her head as she spits the words.

“Hm,” is all Tissaia says, before a new coughing fit takes her.

“She’s dangerous,” Yennefer says over the coughing. “Unpredictable. How many decades has she spent studying dark magics, forbidden magics that we know almost nothing about? You call me sloppy, desperate; the brotherhood considers me a liability, but these are magics even I would not—” But she pauses, swallowing down her anger, the heat and vigour of her words. Showing so much emotion is dangerous. She affects a sudden, half-laugh instead. “Well. Maybe I would, if they suited my purpose.”

“Don’t be glib,” Tissaia says, voice rising suddenly. Yennefer knows this tone, remembers it well even half a century later. “It’s precisely that attitude that makes _you_ unpredictable and dangerous. At least Fringilla can be relied upon to act dishonorably. Who knows when Yennefer of Vengerberg might turn to treachery?”

At this, Yennefer rises to her full height for the first time since Sabrina stabbed her, ignoring the pain in her abdomen, forgetting the self-control from a moment ago, and instead glaring full malice in Tissaia’s direction. “ _Treachery,_ ” she spits. “Don’t talk to me about treachery. While you were off with Fringilla—looking for redemption, or some face to face battle, or whatever it is you do—you _weren’t_ at the hill. Where were you when we needed you? I felt every blow they took; I felt each of them die,” she finishes through gritted teeth, feeling and sensing them even now. Coral, Atlan, Vanielle. Arrows bedded in her ribs, a severed arm. “And _you_ , off galavanting in the woods, with your mind selfishly blocked off from all of it!”

Tissaia says nothing. And perhaps that’s worse than all the rest, the fact that she doesn’t even have the decency to comment. It doesn’t help that Yennefer can’t see her face, can’t read her at all, outside of the sound of her breaths, which at the moment aren’t an accurate measurement of anything at all.

“So,” she says, needing something other than the silence, something to ground her. Something to relish in, perhaps. “What did it take, hm? What did it take to bring the great Tissaia to her knees?” What fresh evil had Fringilla had to unleash to overcome the Archmistress of Aretuza?

“Powdered dimeritium,” Tissaia says, so cooly Yennefer stops short.

That cannot be. She must have heard her wrong. Her mouth feels dry. Before she can gather up the words to demand Tissaia repeat herself, however, the woman is speaking again.

“I swallowed some. Inhaled more. I didn’t have much control. Some has leached into my blood, it seems. Nenneke suspects permanent damage to my lungs.” She ticks these items off like a to-do list, only a little darkness hiding under her even tone. But then, in an uncharacteristic display of _actual_ emotion, she asks in a snarl made all the more primal by the fluid in her lungs: “Does that explanation suffice to allow you to glut yourself on my suffering?”

Tissaia may as well have struck her squarely in the jaw. Yennefer stands there, not knowing what to do or say or even feel, and this time when Tissaia erupts into a coughing fit it’s an almost-welcome reprieve. Almost. Because she knows why now.

As a child, Yennefer had not known magic lived inside of her, had not understood her own inclination towards channeling Chaos. It had taken her a long time to come into it, too. She’d been the last of her class to pass every Trial, but Tissaia had seen the raw talent, had nurtured it in a way she had never nurtured Yennefer. Now, she cannot imagine being cut off from it. Yennefer doesn’t know Tissaia’s true age, doubts anyone does, really, but she does know that the woman is decades, maybe even centuries older than she is. And for a moment—for the briefest, sparsest of moments—she allows herself to think of someone else first, to imagine what it must be like to be blocked from that ability after hundreds of years of being one of the most powerful mages alive.

She deflates a little, anger flung off in other directions for now, sufficiently shamed to keep another moment of silence for herself. Her blindness is terrifying and maddening, and she understands now that her vision was the price she paid for protecting Tissaia. She’s still angry about that, too: still wonders if Tissaia fully appreciates what she’d asked, what Yennefer had given in response. (Knows, deep down, she probably understands full well.) But no one had asked Tissaia to face Fringilla alone.

Then again, no one had asked Yennefer to spare Tissaia’s life either. So, she supposes, they have no one but themselves to blame.

Belatedly, half-consciously, she realises that they are in the sauna not for the sake of treating Tissaia's lungs, but her blood—the fact that it makes for the easy dispersal of an herbal remedy is only a fortunate side effect. After all, if heavy metals and other toxins can be sweat out, why not dimeritium?

And if she's sweating dimeritium, she must be in a great deal of torment as they speak.

This thought and the humidity in the room are enough to drain Yennefer of what little fight she has left.

“Why did you do it?” she asks, voice strained despite the firm control she tries to maintain, almost desperate for an answer.

Tissaia hums an odd note, a scoffing breath. “For personal glory? Because I thought I could turn her? What does it matter? I failed.”

“Of course it matters!” Yennefer cries, taking half a step forward before remembering herself. “We needed you!”

But what she means is, _I needed you._

She doesn't say this, forbids herself to even feel it—and yet for the second time in what she can only assume is as many days, Tissaia says, very quietly: “I'm sorry.”

“Can your apologies bring them back?” Yennefer asks, without thinking, without pause.

“Would my presence have saved them?” 

This is something Yennefer has not considered, something that has not even crossed her mind. The thought brings her up short for several beats.

“Maybe,” she finally says, shrugging her defeat.

“Maybe not?” Tissaia asks quietly.

Yennefer allows her silence to be her answer.

She takes a step forward.

“Stop,” Tissaia says.

Yennefer pauses automatically at the order, frowning.

Tissaia has seen her intent though. “Turn to your right,” she instructs weakly. “Just a little.” Yennefer obeys. “Two steps.”

She hates this; it feels like a juvenile game of trust. But she continues to follow Tissaia's order, knowing there are probably obstacles, knowing she won't be led astray. _Trusting_ , after all.

Because despite herself, in spite of everything, she does trust Tissaia.

At least as far as she can throw her.

“Now come to me. Stop.” She coughs again, and Yennefer thinks the mucus might be a little thinner.

She draws up short, can tell she's just beside and over Tissaia. She’s on the floor, Yennefer decides, based on how far away she still seems.

“You know, if I'm going to stay, I'll have to take this shift off,” she remarks blithely, searching for a change of tack. It's true, it's warmer here—too warm, dampness gathering on her brow.

“No one asked you to stay,” Tissaia replies wearily. “But do as you please; you always do.”

Yennefer laughs a little at that, just a short few notes that aren't entirely whole-hearted, but she laughs nevertheless. It's tempting to make a show of pulling out of the shift, but she's been in the room long enough now she just wants out. She fumbles with the ties, and after a moment pulls the outer garment over her head.

“There's a chair behind me,” Tissaia offers helpfully as Yennefer kneels carefully down beside her, deciding based on Tissaia's breathing that they are in fact on the same level.

She leans back, groping for the chair and finding its leg, and places the abandoned garment in the seat.

“They'll have something to say about having to change your bandages so soon,” Tissaia murmurs.

Reflexively, Yennefer's hand goes to the wrappings. She sniffs, absently smoothing her hand over her wound, feeling the discomfort it causes. “They can say what they want.”

“You shouldn't trifle with Nenneke,” Tissaia counsels. “She's much more likely to cuff your ear than I am.”

“But significantly less likely to turn me into an eel.”

There's a moment of silence. And then, Tissaia begins to chuckle quietly, and Yennefer joins her. Tissaia's laughter quickly falters into a coughing spell, but for a brief moment, they're back at Sodden, preparing for the end. Laughing about something as trivial and absurd as the possibility of Tissaia bedding Vilgefortz for the night. Agreeing through laughter and looks alone that he’s not Tissaia’s type, even for a night on the precipice.

A scant few minutes later, they had established just how true that unspoken conclusion was. If Yennefer thinks on it, she can taste the ale on Tissaia’s tongue, can feel the warmth of her body, the unsteady rise and fall of her breast. The cold stone against her palms as Tissaia withdrew, hands cupping her face to murmur, not for the first or last time: _”Reserve your Chaos, and survive.”_

It had only been a kiss, but it had been a good one—the sort of kiss you only find at the end of things. The problem is, they’ve come through the end. They’re back at the start, each alive, each with their own demons, their own traumas. 

Yennefer swallows hard, and for a moment, the guilt must show on her face, because Tissaia makes a quiet noise before asking softly, so softly: “Yennefer?”

“What’s it like?” Yennefer asks, forcing her tone into a casual one, “being without your magic?”

Tissaia sighs, then quiets. For once, Yennefer allows herself to be patient.

“Quiet,” Tissaia replies at last, clearing her throat and humming another thoughtful note. “Very, _very_ quiet. No ripples, no background noise. You forget how much of it is there, take for granted your awareness of the souls around you. Now, it’s just… me and my thoughts,” she finishes slowly, a slight lilt in her voice. Yennefer imagines a wistful smile accompanying the tone. “There have been times when I’ve thought, _‘wouldn’t it be nice to be alone in my head?’_ Well, it’s not. Not really. It’s a bit lonely. A bit helpless.”

Yennefer turns towards Tissaia, wanting nothing more than to search her face, to find whatever depth of emotion might be behind her eyes. But Tissaia has always been a closed book; Yennefer suspects that the quiet, pensive solemnity of her tone is as close to truth as she’ll ever come with the other woman.

A pity, really. There are times she would genuinely like to know Tissaia’s motives, her thoughts. What drives her, what truths she unveils and what lies she manufactures for her most subtle manipulations. Because she has always been a woman of machinations, but a good-hearted one, so far as Yennefer can tell. Much better than Yennefer ever has been. She sees now that Tissaia’s concern has almost always been for the bigger picture. Mages are not known for their long views, despite their long lifespans. They are, both of them, part of a selfish and arrogant breed. Yennefer knows her faults, knows she’s always been short-sighted, brash, and concerned most of all for herself.

Tissaia is different. Controlling and egocentric, of course, but with a clear bent on that which is good for the world around her, even if she is sometimes misguided in those efforts.

“What about you?” Tissaia asks suddenly, a subdued sort of empathy hiding behind her wheeze. “What of your blindness?”

Yennefer lowers her face, closes her eyes. For a moment, she considers keeping it to herself. But if this is to be a give and take—and her relationship with Tissaia usually is—she owes as much truth, at least, as Tissaia has offered.

“It’s frightening,” she says simply, decisively, nodding slightly to emphasise the point. “Everything is frightening. Maybe people who have _been_ blind don’t feel that way, but… Noises could be anything, and I swear the next time someone touches me without announcing themselves first—

She cuts herself off, feeling her temper rising again, and sighs out a breath. Coughs.

“We should get you out of here,” Tissaia says, but Yennefer shakes her head.

“It’s just one little cough,” she mutters. “You’re not done here.” She turns her face towards Tissaia again, feeling the moisture beaded on her brow, her upper lip, knowing that the little bit of the herbal concoction left lingering in the air is taking its effect, but knowing also that it won’t harm her. Tissaia is still moving fluid out of her lungs regularly—is improving, if the sound of her breaths are anything to go by, but…

She doesn’t know why, but Yennefer finds herself reaching out to her, wanting to touch her.

“You don't want to do that,” Tissaia mutters, but Yennefer doesn't hear her move away.

Yennefer takes pause, but doesn’t withdraw. Makes a thoughtful noise. “What, are you completely naked?” she asks, imbuing her tone with a bit of humour. It's forced, but it elicits a dark note of a laugh from Tissaia.

“Of course not,” she replies, sounding slightly affronted.

Yennefer doesn't dedicate too much time to wondering when she last bared herself before another person. Yennefer likes the company of lovers, and while it wouldn't surprise her to find that Tissaia feels the same, she also wouldn’t be terribly surprised to hear that Tissaia hasn't had sex with another person in several decades. Both seem equally likely, somehow, even knowing the effect her kiss had had.

Irrelevant matters aside, Yennefer continues to extend her hand; there's the faint sound of shifting material, and Yennefer's fingers land lightly on Tissaia's shoulder blade. Tissaia twists back around, and Yennefer's hand follows the movement. She walks her fingers across the thin material of the garment, traces the line of Tissaia's scapula with her thumb. Takes in the odd angles, the absence of Tissaia’s usual poise.

Lays her hand flat against Tissaia's spine when another coughing fit takes her, her entire body heaving with the effort. Her scapulae jut out as she moves forward; she’s braced against something, leaning over it. A bucket, no doubt, given the trauma her lungs have endured and the current treatment.

“You could have just told me, you know,” Yennefer says after Tissaia stills, trembling beneath her hand, breath ragged and head bowed.

How had she failed to notice the trembling? Now that she feels it, she can hear it in the way she breathes too. Despite her unremarkable stature, Tissaia has always seemed a little larger than life; now she seems impossibly small, all fragile, quavering lines beneath Yennefer’s hand.

Yennefer traces her spine up to the hem of her garment; lets her fingers drift up along the nape of her neck, her hairline. Feels the slight shiver the touch provokes. Her hair is loose—pulled out of the way, but clearly not into its usual, meticulous chignon. There is nothing fastidious about her now, Yennefer thinks, fingers traversing the pressure points at the base of her skull. Yennefer has never been inclined towards such touch, doesn’t know why she does so now. Something about it feels taboo; while Tissaia has not always covered her neck, many of her gowns are high-collared, revealing hands and throat and little else. There’s no victory here, though; she _wants_ to touch her. Inexplicably. Improbably. Curls her fingers into soft hair, a little above her sweat-damp nape.

After a moment, Tissaia swallows audibly and asks, enunciating carefully: “You understand, of course, the nature of this treatment?”

“Don’t patronise me, Tissaia.” Yet once again, where there could be rancor, Yennefer finds she has none.

“But you've gathered,” she begins again, “that the point of this”—her weight shifts; she must be gesturing to their immediate vicinity—“is to remove toxins—specifically dimeritium—from my body. That it’s not just about my lungs?”

“I understand,” Yennefer says evenly, recognising this as an attempt at half-hearted dismissal and stubbornly staying her course. “I wasn't intending to bathe in your sweat, I assure you.” If Tissaia is indeed sweating out dimeritium leached into her bloodstream, she doesn't want anything to do with it. Yet still, her fingertips stroke at her impossibly soft hair, until Tissaia's head drops forward. She pulls back then, resettling her hand on Tissaia's back, tracing her fingers across its ridges and valleys.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asks, waiting out the three short coughs that follow with her fingers splayed against Tissaia’s back as if to steady her.

“Tell you what?” Tissaia asks wearily, as if she doesn’t already know.

“Why you couldn’t heal my eyes, obviously.”

“Maybe I couldn’t,” she says, voice firm.

“I don’t believe you couldn’t, if you were able.”

“Maybe I _wouldn’t_.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” Yennefer says on a sigh, canting her head to the side as she glares pointedly in Tissaia’s direction.

For a long few moments, only Tissaia’s rattling breaths break the silence.

“Running from the truth, were you?” Yennefer finally asks, arching a brow, allowing her voice to lilt into a mocking sing-song. “Couldn’t admit to your own weakness, as usual? That you’d been knocked from your pedestal again?” The last, she delivers with a little more steel, dredging up a few more drops of bitterness. Anyone who’d ever claimed Yennefer was difficult clearly had not more than a passing conversation with Tissaia.

Tissaia drops her head again, the muscles in her narrow back shifting with the movement. She sniffs; if there were any other signs of it at all, Yennefer would swear she’s crying.

“Would you blame me, if that were true?” Tissaia asks after a moment, voice weak and quiet and void of anger or challenge. She sounds… tired. Wrung-out.

Thinking on the question, Yennefer wets her lips. Sighs. Curls her fingers into a loose fist against Tissaia’s back. “No,” she says at last. Because it’s a defense mechanism. Because they have always been at odds with each other. Because Tissaia is at odds with the Brotherhood. Because maybe she understands, just a little, the fear Tissaia must feel at the prospect of being weak. 

“No, I suppose not.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insert vague, handwavy canon-building re: magic and the Temple of Melitele here. All mistakes are my own in this chapter.

Tissaia is weak, bone-weary, and her muscles don’t seem to be cooperating anymore. Whether she could even stand on her own, she does not know—and what she does not tell Yennefer, because Yennefer did not ask the right question, is that she is _terrified_. She can’t count the years it’s been since she’s felt this out of control, if she ever has. Maybe once, untold years ago, when she was young and let emotion and Chaos rule her. This is not the fault of Chaos, however—though she may well blame her own sentiment.

Because really, if she thought she could bring Fringilla back into the fold, weaken Nilfgaard by taking its precious sorceress away… Well, if she felt that even a little, her actions were at least as much sentimental as they were tactical.

After all, as much as the others, Fringilla is one of hers. Her students. Her girls. Her fold.

And she should never have been allowed to Ascend.

She does not allow herself to feel gratitude for the weight of Yennefer’s hand against her back; she does not deserve any such gestures. Instead, she focuses on the roiling in her stomach, and on swallowing back the nausea that announces itself every time she wakes, or moves too swiftly, or any number of other things that don’t involve concentrating on the way the toxic metal feels inside of her.

It feels more as if she is inside of it.

By the time two acolytes return to the sudatory, she has coughed, hacked, spit, and gagged enough for several lifetimes, and she's almost certain there’s a sheen of blue across her skin.

Then again, it might be a trick of the light. The truth is, she has no idea if _sweating it out_ is an appropriate therapy for dimeritium poisoning, because in all her years she has never encountered anything quite like it (she must, at least, give Fringilla credit for the ingenuity and audacity of the gambit); she only knows that magical means of removal are not an option. If it is on her skin, it is no wonder she feels so weak, so nauseated. She latches onto this possibility; although never one for wishful thinking, she’ll succumb to it for now. A wash, at least, will make her feel somewhat better, if that’s the case. Somewhat.

She closes her eyes, bending deeply at the hip and thinking that, now, as much as any, would be a good time to crawl into a hole and die.

Beside her, Yennefer rises, shift rustling in her hands. “I could go for a real bath, after that,” she says with a large, false smile. Tissaia looks up at her, head heavy, and the black of Yennefer's eyes makes the expression objectively horrifying.

One of the acolytes, toting a large bucket, walks over looking rather uncertain. She can’t be more than twenty. Tissaia cocks her head weakly, gesturing the girl over as she pushes herself upright on arms unsteady as foals’ legs. 

“Where is Nenneke?”

The girl hesitates for a moment. “Busy, Mistress,” she says then, guiltily.

Tissaia tenses, shooting Yennefer a look reserved for quelling the behaviors of the worst of students but knowing that, even if Yennefer could see it, it would gain her nothing. Not least of all because she is weak, disheveled, and covered in sweat, and very clearly could not physically follow through with any silent threats she might make.

Nenneke herself should be here, not some novice of the temple. She desires a peer for this, not a child. She has no qualms with nakedness, no compunctions with baring her body with whom and for whom she pleases, but _this_ does not please her. But Nenneke is a busy and stubborn woman; Tissaia knows this from reputation alone. She also knows from a few short days of personal experience that the woman is not one to be trifled with.

She’s broken some unspoken code now, by dismissing the temple’s Archpriestess in favour of Yennefer’s company, and a little acid rises in her throat at the thought. She tamps it down, makes a noble effort of not letting the repulsion show on her face. She's being punished for wasting the woman's time, and it isn't a pleasant feeling. But then, she probably would have done the same. After all, how much effort has she gone to to teach her students that each and every action carries with it consequences too varied to enumerate?

“Come on then,” she says, much more gently than even she expects. “Get it over with.”

She's been all but sprawled across the floor until now, most of her weight centered on one thigh with her knees bent to the side. She straightens now, getting slowly to her knees and sitting on her heels as she struggles out of the robe draped around her body.

The girl takes the hem of the garment, helps to move it off her left shoulder, and Tissaia grits her teeth, hating the weakness, the inability to perform such basic functions as undressing. Hating just as much that it is necessary at all.

She tries, very desperately, to be gracious about it. She’s been leaning on her reputation as a congenial woman, by and large, in her relationships with those outside of Aretuza for longer than she can remember; it won’t do to let that image falter, even here, sicker than she’s ever been, in a temple full of priestesses and herbalists with no political sway whatsoever.

So she musters a weak nod of thanks. Forces a small smile as the girl lowers a sponge into the bucket of water.

“Your name, child?” she asks quietly, raw throat catching on the syllables.

“Dore, Mistress,” the girl replies at the same volume. Before Tissaia can reply, the wet sponge is pressed against the nape of her neck.

She knows it’s going to be cold, but there’s no steeling herself for it. She hisses out a breath, at once made guttural by the fluid in her chest and desperate by the high-pitched, brief note that soars over it like a whine.

As Dore guides the sponge from her hairline down the back of her neck, Yennefer spins from the door, expression dark and terrifying.

“Why is it that everything you do to her sounds like torture?” she snaps.

Dore says nothing, doesn’t even pause, rewetting the sponge to scrub gently but efficiently at Tissaia’s shoulder, making long, swift strokes to cleanse her skin of whatever microscopic sediment has found its way there. Rivulets of icy water glide down her arms, her chest, and she doesn’t have the constitution for any of this, not anymore. Her whole body seems to quake once, violently, before she can muster any semblance of control. The water cannot be as cold as it feels.

“Because it is,” she snaps right back. Not the response Yennefer expected, she’s sure. She lowers her voice then, says sternly, dismissively, and a little breathlessly: “Go, have your bath.”

“Tissaia…”

There is, admittedly, a minute portion of Tissaia that’s grateful for Yennefer’s apparent bullheaded protectiveness. She cannot explain it, could not hope to understand it, but it’s there. Unfortunately for both of them, her vigilance is, at present, misplaced, and an abundant source of annoyance. This so-called treatment is difficult enough without her barging in like a tornado, making herself heard and felt and seen to the avail of no one.

Then again, perhaps she’s a welcome distraction, in a way. It’s all so very difficult to tell.

“Go on,” Tissaia repeats, unable to muster much volume anymore. “Leave me to my torture session.”

To Dore’s credit, she is quick, economical in her movements, and spares no words, nor even a look of sympathy when Tissaia is forced to lean heavily on her as her muscles warm again to the task of standing upright, despite that she can’t be a stone heavier than Tissaia herself.

“How do you feel?” she inquires softly as she loosely knots a clean robe closed at Tissaia’s waist.

Tissaia uses her for balance for a moment longer before steadying herself. “Awake,” she says a little blandly, eliciting a shy smirk from the novice.

“The cold water increases blood flow, helps with healing. And closes the pores, of course,” she says, suddenly more talkative. If only she could say something Tissaia _doesn’t_ already know. “I don’t know much about dimeterium—”

“—dimeritium—”

Dore nods acknowledgement. “—but I don’t imagine you’ll be wanting it to stick around.”

“No,” Tissaia agrees darkly. “I don’t imagine I do.”

Dore purses her lips at this, brow knit. “It’s toxic to you, but not to non-mages.”

Tissaia frowns, arching a brow. “Is that a question?”

Blushing slightly, Dore moves to her side. “Yes. There’s a proper bath for you, if you’d like?”

“I would,” Tissaia replies, looping her arm with Dore’s proffered one for support. At the girl’s expectant look, she sighs wearily. “Dimeritium inhibits the flow of magic,” she explains, in the simplest terms she can manage. “Mages are conduits of magic.”

“But you’re ill,” Dore insists as they move into the main body of the bathing chambers. “If all magic does is move through you…”

Pursing her lips, Tissaia sighs. “Child, to further entertain a conversation on the nature of Chaos in this world would be to delve into a philosophical discussion for which I do not have the energy and you do not have the foundational knowledge.”

“Ah,” says Dore, offering a half-smile in reply.

Tissaia pats her arm once, lightly, and a bit awkwardly, as they move through to one of the smaller chambers, lavender and mint hanging lightly in the air. Upon arriving, Tissaia stops short, exhaling on a heavy sigh that leads to a coughing fit.

“There you are,” Yennefer says from the edge of the hip-deep pool, head tilted, smirking wickedly. She is naked, even her bandages removed, and sits cross-legged, left leg submerged up to the top of her calf, right foot kicking daintily at the water’s surface. The novice who retrieved her from the sudatory is nowhere to be seen.

“This… _was_ prepared for you,” Dore assures once Tissaia’s coughing has died down.

“Of course, but sharing _is_ caring,” Yennefer drawls in reply, voice pitched high, the smirk firmly in place.

“I do wonder if I will ever have the occasion to _miss_ you,” Tissaia grumbles. She’s too tired for this. She’s too tired to combat it. She's angry at Yennefer for spoiling whatever plans existed for her treatment, and she wants her bath. She draws away from the stability of Dore’s arm and stalks into the chamber on legs that are weak, but steady enough.

“Hm. You will, of course. Miss me. When I'm gone.”

“I doubt it very strongly.”

She eyes Dore, hovering in the doorway, and the girl excuses herself with a shrug and a tilt of her head.

Alone now, save for Yennefer, Tissaia slows down, breathes. Works her way out of the robe in the quiet that follows, aware of Yennefer’s eyes trained in her direction, her expression vaguely amused, as Tissaia lowers herself cautiously into the pool.

And for a brief moment, she forgets that she’s at all annoyed with the younger mage. Forgets her present state of being, and the long journey to Sodden, and the battle, and the past few days. The water is warm, fed by hot springs deep below the earth, and laden with herbs which almost immediately quiet both her stomach and the aches of her muscles as it wraps around her calves, her thighs, buoying and caressing.

She exhales, long and slow, ignoring even the rattle in her airway for a moment.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Better if you would allow me even a single moment of peace,” Tissaia complains, lifting her eyes to the ceiling even as she lowers herself deeper into the water, to a seat on a narrow ledge.

“Hmph,” Yennefer replies simply, fingers moving to the wound at her abdomen, absently tracing the edge of a paste that has been spread across the surrounding flesh. Tissaia recognises it as a means of sealing the wound temporarily, protecting it from the water.

“Don’t pick at it,” Tissaia scolds, annoyed. If Yennefer is to be up, out of her bed and lounging in the baths, the least she can do is treat her own injuries with a modicum of caution.

Yennefer scoffs. “It’s practically healed anyway.” She’s obfuscating though; Tissaia knows it without questioning. She's a fair hand at pretending it doesn't bother her while she's up and about, but it hurts her when the herbs wear off. Hurts when she's medicated too, Tissaia would wager, based on some of Yennefer's expressions. Yennefer seems to forget that just because she cannot see does not mean others cannot see her.

“I’ll let them know that, the next time someone comes to give you something for the pain in the middle of the night.”

Jaw steeled, Yennefer falls silent. Tissaia watches her warily as she stills at the edge of the pool. At last, Yennefer heaves a sigh, cheek tilted against her shoulder, hand on the ground behind her, weight balanced on her arm. “You really are a bitch, aren’t you?”

Accusations like this one have been rolling off of Tissaia’s shoulders for more lifetimes than she cares to count, however. If it is intended to strike home, Yennefer fails; instead, Tissaia rolls her eyes and reaches for the soap left at the side of the modestly sized pool.

A good scrub, a proper scrub, should go much further to making her feel something like a human being again. Frankly, she hasn’t felt like one in a good three days. She suspects it will be a long while yet before she comes close.

Pushing herself upright, bouncing her fist against the floor, Yennefer purses her lips. She’s winding up for something, it seems—asks, after a moment, a little uncertainty masked by a casual tone: “How do you feel?” 

Tissaia stills, watching her fidget. She has the grace and courtesy not to laugh. Instead, she stares silently for a moment. Yennefer stills too, after a stretch of quiet, brows furrowing.

“Tissaia?”

“Fine,” Tissaia says blandly, clearing her throat as she finally begins scrubbing herself off. She’s bathed since the battle, but thinks she might need another five or six baths before the grime of it is off of her.

“Don’t lie.”

“Why would I?”

Yennefer’s jaw clenches again. She pauses, then says, a little ferocity in her tone: “We’re here together, Tissaia. If you don’t like it, maybe you shouldn’t have come along for the ride.”

“You gave me little choice.” Because it was Yennefer who tumbled out of that soldier’s arms, Yennefer who clung to Tissaia like a lifeline as she fell, as the ground opened up beneath them to swallow them up. And maybe Tissaia had instinctively clung to Yennefer too, maybe she’d had her hands on her before she ever awakened, but that’s hardly the point.

The point escapes her.

“Well, fuck you too,” Yennefer grumbles.

“There are other options to entertain, of course,” Tissaia says suddenly, a wary eye on Yennefer as she speaks.

“Are there?” Yennefer mocks, lounging back on her arms again with a sneer.

“Certainly.” Tissaia steels herself, eyes fixed on Yennefer's face, waiting out her reaction. “I could teach you the Elder; you could heal your own eyes.”

Yennefer laughs outright at this, the laugh quickly becoming a wince as she covers her wound with her hand. “Really? I learned my lesson about trying to heal myself long ago.”

“You did a fair enough job of mitigating the damage to your liver on the battlefield.”

“Yes, mitigating. Notice how I'm letting these hacks finish the job.”

 _Letting._ Tissaia rolls her eyes. Yennefer isn't letting anyone do anything. She’s right though; balancing Chaos is difficult enough on the body when not aimed _at_ the self; healing oneself is tricky, even dangerous, to the inept and those without a firm focus. But that is not the point; she presses onward.

“Then consider this: there are a few mages who could heal you without blinking. Several more clever enough to learn the incantations. You can still portal; or a courier could be sent to fetch someone to us here.”

The silence this time is heavy, deafening. Instinctively Tissaia reaches out with her mind, trying to get the smallest glimpse of what Yennefer is feeling, but all the effort does is dredge up a wave of nausea and vertigo. She only just stifles the grunt, doubling over slightly.

Yennefer speaks just as Tissaia takes a steadying breath. “No.”

It takes a moment to regain her voice, but she's pleased enough with the level, disinterested tone she affects. “No?”

“No,” Yennefer repeats, darkened gaze intent when she turns back toward Tissaia again. She has seen through the ruse; she's always been too clever—far too clever, and bare inches out of Tissaia's reach. But she does not appear to be angry. She raps her knuckles once against stone. “Neither of us needs the Brotherhood breathing down our necks now. You least of all. Not in this condition; it could be the death of you, for all we know. A courier might attract attention, and we haven't exactly been secretive about our identities here as it is.”

“You think anyone will find us in Ellander?” Tissaia probes, continuing to watch Yennefer carefully.

“No. But anything's possible. And anyway, who can we trust? The cowards who ran? Or our so-called friends who didn’t bother to show themselves at Sodden in the first place, like Philippa?” After a moment of silence she splays her fingers against the stone tile and makes a dismissive noise. “We're better off here,” she finishes decisively, expression grave.

For a moment, Tissaia allows those words to settle around them. “Well,” she murmurs at last. “You have gained a little wisdom after all.”

“ _Tch._ ”

Tissaia feels one corner of her mouth lift despite herself.

There's a long silence after that. Tissaia returns to her bath while Yennefer splashes absently at the surface of the water. Eventually, she too lowers herself into the pool, extending a hand wordlessly. Tissaia assumes it is for the soap; passes it and a clean rag left within her reach along.

It must be a relief; Tissaia has had the occasion to bathe since her arrival, however ill she may have been, but Yennefer has only been sponged off by other hands. She eyes Yennefer's belly once, assuring herself that the water of the bath does not cover her wound.

“You scrub my back, I'll scrub yours?” Yennefer asks after a span, wrist cocked with the rag hanging haphazardly from her fingers.

“Hmph. I'll scrub yours, but no need to return the favour,” Tissaia replies begrudgingly.

Having her back scrubbed would be nice, of course, but she's bared enough of herself today.

And anyway, Yennefer is rather new to being blind, and a bit of a shit—for lack of more polite terms—when left to her own devices. Tissaia doesn't need her groping about.

“Suit yourself,” Yennefer sings, turning away as Tissaia pushes herself upright to take the two steps between them. 

She takes the cloth, soaps it while Yennefer pulls her hair out of the way.

“Ready?” she asks, keeping her distance for now, unwilling to startle Yennefer or make her uncomfortable.

“Mm,” Yennefer affirms simply, tilting her chin down.

She touches her then; Yennefer's right shoulder twitches, but she relaxes almost immediately as Tissaia starts at her neck and works her way down. The healers have been thorough enough, but there's the faintest streak of soot—or maybe she imagines it—near Yennefer's shoulder. She is more thorough, scrubs at the expanse of skin slowly and carefully, and in that care forgets her own discomfort for a few minutes. She rinses the cloth, and begins to wash the soap from Yennefer’s back.

“So,” Yennefer says at length. The atmosphere of the room changes with the syllable. “Whatever half-baked magic is in the soil of that greenhouse: is it enough to fix my eyes? Can Nenneke heal me?” She turns her head; Tissaia takes a step back and to the side, tilting her head for a better look at Yennefer’s face.

The question hangs heavy in the air, the gravity of it written across Yennefer's face, etched in the frown, the furrow of her brow.

Pursing her lips, Tissaia shifts. Works a bit of hair back behind her ear. Sighs again.

“How bad are they?” Yennefer asks, before Tissaia has a chance to answer, eyes wide and probing despite her sightlessness. “I’ve seen limbs withered; I can tell that’s not what happened, but…” She trails off before turning away, and Tissaia finishes the process of rinsing the soap away from her back in momentary silence.

“They could be worse,” she finally replies. “Much worse. You stopped just as the damage began, it seems. From what I can tell, the integrity of the eye itself remains. I suspect most any mage of decent learning could restore the broad functionality of your sight, but your vision might not be as keen, or you might lose colours.” Yennefer doesn’t seem pleased with this, but Tissaia is uninterested in tracking down the first, nearest backwater magic-user to help—not for herself or for Yennefer. “As for Nenneke? I do not know enough to begin to guess if her treatment will be effective.”

“And will they get worse?”

“I doubt it. As long as you maintain control.”

“Well. That’s something.”

“Change your mind about leaving?”

“No.”

Tissaia believes her, and she is grateful.

* * *

Later in the day, Tissaia develops a fever.

Yennefer spoons soup carefully into her mouth, bowl held close, and listens as Irina—she thinks it’s Irina, anyway, and she’s too proud to ask—ticks off each herb one-by-one for an inquiring Tissaia. They’re all the right herbs, of course; Yennefer can’t decide if she’s annoyed or not by this.

Tissaia does not eat. Later still, while Yennefer lies on her back with a foul-smelling poultice over her eyes, she refuses food again. She’s fresh out of another session down in the bathing chambers, and is back to hacking her lungs out, by the sounds of it.

(Yennefer knows that it is the result of moving the trapped mucus into the largest parts of her lungs, allowing it to flow freely, and she also knows that it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t stop the coughing and phlegm from being disturbing. Generous use of potions makes sorceresses largely impervious to most ailments; it is difficult to imagine one of her own in such poor condition—much less _Tissaia_ , once again ripped from her pedestal, made low, no longer larger than life, but grasping at it.)

Yennefer has never been much good at doing nothing, so soon after they remove the poultice from her eyes and wipe her face clean, and while Tissaia is still taking carefully timed, forceful breaths that seem to make her cough endlessly, she slips into sleep.

It’s not coughing that wakes her again, but a whimper. Before she has fully returned to consciousness, she’s taken by the overwhelming sense that something is wrong.

Blinking her eyes open, Yennefer listens. Takes in the quiet of their surroundings, the soft crackle of the nearby fire. It’s nighttime, and Tissaia’s breathing is erratic, punctuated by quiet, unsteady, wordless complaints.

“Tissaia?”

She does not respond. Yennefer levers herself upright, settling bare feet on cold stone. It’s a scant few feet to Tissaia’s bed; she feels her way to it, lowering herself to her knees and reaching out. She repeats the other woman’s name, once, twice, and by some luck finds Tissaia’s arm first. She slides her fingers down, finds the bare flesh of her wrist just as Tissaia jerks awake with a muffled cry.

“Gods, Tissaia, you’re burning up.”

Tissaia wrenches away; the linens rustle as she moves. She retches.

Yennefer moves onto the bed, wincing at her body's revolt, teeth gritted as she reaches out. She finds Tissaia's bent back with one hand, drops to an elbow to search out Tissaia's face, fingers catching in her hair before circling to her brow to confirm: her fever is dangerously high.

Yennefer has been called to the bedside of countless patients catatonic or unresponsive from fever by family too afraid, or cheap, or stupid to call upon the town mage until the eleventh hour. She knows where this leads. Knows that Tissaia’s body is fighting too hard, will kill her long before it eradicates the offending dimeritium—for the dimeritium must be at the root of this. No, no, this is a hopeless, losing battle.

“Help!” She does not ask it—she makes sure of that; she _orders_ it. _Someone_ is puttering around this dump tending to those who need it. Tissaia writhes, body hanging haphazardly over the edge of the bed, panting; she needs to cool her down. “She needs herbs for a fever; I’ll wake this whole _bloody_ place if you don’t hurry!”

Sodden forced Yennefer to spend herself; she’s not sure how she managed not one, but two portals, but her reserves of Chaos have dwindled to almost nothing; she has little to give. But there is a fire—and that is a source of energy she knows how to put to use.

She pushes herself up to a sitting position, then hauls Tissaia up by the arm, teeth gritted as her muscles strain. (Tissaia moans, collapses against Yennefer’s chest before arching back again with a whine.) She focuses. Breathes in fire. (There are footsteps outside the room. They had better be bringing medicine.) Allows the Chaos inside her to shift. Breathes out and the air around them grows lighter, cooler. Her skin pricks at their bubble of cool air. It won’t be enough, of course; it’s never that easy.

They must be a sight, because whoever has joined them actually swears, weight joining Tissaia and Yennefer’s on the bed.

“What have you brought?” Yennefer demands.

“These,” the woman says.

She must have forgotten that Yennefer cannot see whatever she may be holding out for her appraisal. 

“I’m sure it’s perfect,” Yennefer snarls, reaching past Tissaia’s body, beneath her arm. “Give it to me.”

A small bowl lands in her hand. She smells it; it must be right. She speaks the Elder. She focuses on the fire. She ignores the way Tissaia’s body feels pressed against hers, small, shuddering and frail. Ignores the ragged breaths and the heat radiating from her. Thrusts the bowl back in the healer’s direction. It’s taken from her hand; Tissaia’s head moves, guided by the stranger.

Yennefer loops her arms beneath Tissaia’s, clenches her jaw, and wills her body cooler, palms pressed to Tissaia’s chest and neck. She shivers; Tissaia’s flesh feels almost too hot to touch.

“Your nose is bleeding!” Yennefer does not have time for alarm.

“Shut up and let me do this,” she snarls, warming as some of the heat flows out of Tissaia's body, into her own.

She’s losing the fire. She focuses the last of her dwindling reserves on the area around her hands, and her forearms where they press up against Tissaia’s underarms. A chill runs down her spine.

She forgets the rest.

* * *

Tissaia remembers burning. Remembers the way the flames licked her skin and then engulfed her. Remembers what it felt like to be consumed, destroyed, brought to ruin. The figure above her, Chaos wielded like an unsheathed weapon, hot-blooded rage its hilt. She remembers bleeding, burning. Maybe even dying.

She remembers a cool touch.

She wakes.

For a long moment, that is all she is: awake, a sliver of personhood clinging haphazardly to a damaged frame.

The first proof that she is here, mortal, is the nausea. It comes on suddenly, clenching at her as she takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Steady. Breathe. _Settle._

Easy.

One.

Two.

She claims control—a feeble control, at best, but it is something.

Someone breathes against her—the deep, easy breath of unburdened sleep.

Birds wake with the day outside.

Her fever has broken.

She remembers the truth of it, then. Distantly, hazily—less clearly than the fever-addled recollections of Sodden-that-wasn’t—but she remembers it. Yennefer. Heat. Cold. The bruises against her collarbones and shoulder. A cry. A final flush of chill through her body, assuaged with a tendril of warmth.

It’s been a long time since Tissaia awakened with someone else in her bed.

Blinking her eyes slowly open again, Tissaia shifts, twists, rolling slowly to her back. Her spine cracks and her hip pops with the movement. For a moment, she resists the urge to stretch, but the self-control is short-lived. She arches, stifles a groan that is part-relief, part-pain. The fever has made her stiff, sore. She settles back into the bed, breathes two slow, deep breaths.

She is exhausted, and dizzy.

Shifting so that she can turn to face Yennefer, Tissaia gazes blearily at the other woman’s face, slowly taking her in. She’s pale, but only a little. The barest, forgotten crust of dried blood hides at the edge of her nostril. Her lips are parted slightly, and there's a stain of blood there too, just inside her lower lip. Tissaia frowns, reaches out to thumb gently at the vein of black spidering away from Yennefer’s eye. No worse than before, she assures herself, dropping her hand away as Yennefer moans a complaint and resettles her arm across Tissaia’s middle. It’s something like an embrace.

“Yenn—” Her voice sticks; she swallows, tries again. “Yennefer?”

“Hmm.”

Tissaia rests her left arm just above Yennefer’s, fingers brushing the inside of Yennefer’s elbow. She bends her other arm between their bodies, fingertips ghosting across Yennefer’s chin as she watches her for signs of wakefulness, or of trouble.

“Yennefer?"

“I’m sleeping,” Yennefer sighs.

Tissaia hums a half-laugh, stifles a quiet cough as she turns to face the ceiling. Yennefer immediately nuzzles in, forehead tilted against Tissaia’s temple. Her breath catches in Tissaia’s flyaway hair. 

“So you are,” Tissaia murmurs—relaxing, trusting. Her hand trails up to her own chest, fingertips brushing across the twin bruises above her breasts, where Yennefer’s thumb and fingertip dug into her ribs. She’d come close to losing control. Too close. Tissaia touches Yennefer's wrist, lets her hand glide upward until her fingers close softly around Yennefer's arm just below the elbow.

The lecture on self-control, on pressing too closely to the precipice of her own limitations, will have to wait. Maybe an hour, maybe forever. She tilts her head against Yennefer’s brow in the barest gesture of thanks, unspoken and unseen.

The cool hand of sleep reclaims her too.

[ ](https://tiredthinkbucket.tumblr.com/image/618772724944453632)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of Tissaia's internal organs were harmed in the making of this chapter. Yennefer's lacerated liver, however, is still healing (and she might have set herself back a little with these stunts).
> 
> Art by the lovely and magnificent thinkbucket! <3333 ty so much love you're beautiful and i cannot.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are, uh... yeah there are still a lot of emotions. And a lot more vague handwaving at canon and the nature of magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While all the errors in the previous chapter were mine, i actually gave Miriam a chance to beta this one so now all the errors are hers.
> 
> That's a joke. I love my beta.

As Yennefer comes to full wakefulness again, she notices three things.

First, that Tissaia is beside her, still and warm, and breathing evenly. Yennefer’s brow is tilted against her head; Tissaia’s hair tickles her nose. This information, she processes lackadaisically, even as her body comes to terms with itself: her chest pressed gently against Tissaia’s shoulder, the narrow line of Tissaia’s waist beneath her arm, the movement of her body when she breathes.

Second, that the faint taste of copper lingers in her mouth. The inside of her lower lip stings; she’s not entirely certain how she injured it.

Third, that there is a renewed pain in her abdomen, worse than the day prior. It’s not _terrible_ , but it is troubling. Deeper than the stitches—definitely an aggravation of the internal injury.

Yennefer runs her tongue along the outside of her lower teeth, feeling the damage inside of her lip even as she instinctively brings her hand to her wound, fingers gliding across Tissaia’s body as she rolls onto her back. Her bandages are crumpled from last night’s _excitement_.

She levers herself upright with a quiet moan; as she does, Tissaia shifts.

“Are you alright?”

How long has Tissaia been lying awake?

“Fine,” Yennefer mutters, dropping her hand, forcing herself to take a steady breath, carefully schooling her expression to hide the pain from her face. “And you?” The question is half-obfuscation, half-genuine concern. She seems well, but Yennefer has little grasp of what came of her efforts to bring Tissaia’s fever down. It was too much, too fast; she has no recollection at all of what happened after the fact, how they came to be curled together in Tissaia's bed.

“I’m alright,” Tissaia replies. Her voice is hoarse, but even enough. Yes, Yennefer decides, she seems well. “It appears I am in your debt now.”

Yennefer sniffs. Before Sodden, she would have gloated. The great Tissaia legitimately owing Yennefer anything at all seems quite the suitable excuse for it. Now, however, she shrugs her left shoulder up slightly, shaking her head. It's too much of a relief to have Tissaia alive and well to do much more. “I probably owe you twice for pulling me out of that pigpen.”

“Let me see your wound.”

“It’s fine.”

“ _Yennefer._ ”

Yennefer rolls her eyes, but finds herself obeying despite herself. She lies back as Tissaia shifts, rucking up her tunic. Tissaia is to her left; Yennefer entertains herself momentarily imagining how Tissaia must be seated in the bed to examine the wound at Yennefer’s right side. It’s hard to imagine the woman curled in bed like a girl conspiring with friends, and she doesn’t have much time to do so either, because Tissaia’s hand stills over her bandages.

“You’ve bled,” she says, and she doesn’t sound terribly concerned, although they both know it’s probably not a good thing for her stitches to be seeping so much now.

“Have I?”

Tissaia moves from the bed as Yennefer reaches down, tracing her fingers across the bandaging. The blood is dry, so she has no idea how much of it there is. It can’t be much, she reasons: she feels well enough, and Tissaia asks for a basin of warm water and a cloth much too calmly for the damage to be serious.

“You shouldn’t have done that, last night,” Tissaia mutters as she returns to the bedside, this time perching in the sliver of space to Yennefer’s right. “I would have been fine.”

The dismissal incites a sudden, irrepressible flare of annoyance in Yennefer. “Would you?” she cannot help but challenge, fire in her voice. “Do you know how overheated you were?” When Tissaia does not immediately reply, Yennefer snorts, feeling her temper rise, her self-control diminish. “Exactly. You were too far gone. The herbs alone would have been too slow. A cool bath might have saved you, I don’t know. I do know you were dying.” She says this with more conviction than she means to, and has to close her eyes, has to settle herself afterwards. The word _dying_ brings the idea too close to home; she can't explain the pit that opens up inside of her at the thought of a world without Tissaia, but she's saved her twice now, and she'd do it again. And again, and again. Because Tissaia is the best of them, long in foresight and with a will to good. A conniving bitch she may yet be, but Yennefer is somehow certain that the Continent would suffer without her.

That _she_ would suffer without her.

Footsteps echo in the corridor outside of the room before someone joins them, treading carefully by the sounds of it, and for once the interruption is more than welcome. Yennefer lies there, trying to banish the intrusive thoughts from her mind as Tissaia’s requested supplies are sorted.

“Let’s remove those bandages,” Tissaia says quietly, somberly. It seems she is equally keen for the change in pace.

Yennefer pushes herself up again, clenching her jaw to avoid actively wincing in pain, and holds the tunic away as Tissaia unbinds her wound. Yennefer can feel her hovering close—the breath on her skin, the errant hair that tickles her cheek. Her mind wanders back to Sodden, to bodies pressed flush, and then back a great deal further, to Aretuza, to a woman standing over her giving her permission to live. The disjointed thoughts spiral, ending with the feather-light brush of Tissaia's fingertips against her own warm skin. She is, Yennefer has found, much gentler than she lets on, soft in this one certainty. By all accounts, Tissaia is a noteworthy healer, but it occurs to Yennefer that she has never actually seen her at work, despite being treated by her multiple times over the years.

“Is there water? To drink?” She feels suddenly parched.

“Yes. A moment.”

Tissaia comes to the end of the bandage, and Yennefer winces as it catches against her skin, blood or stitches clinging to it. The pressure vanishes almost immediately as Tissaia makes a noise of displeasure, the tail of the bandage dropping against Yennefer’s hip.

“Here,” Tissaia murmurs, and Yennefer reaches out. She drains the cup pressed into her hand before passing it back and lying down again, holding just enough water in her mouth to wash it against the sore on her lip.

“You bled just enough to make a mess, it seems,” Tissaia observes. “I’ll try not to pull.”

Yennefer takes this as warning enough. As Tissaia scrubs, Yennefer closes her eyes.

“Are you alright to do this?” she asks, for lack of anything better to distract her from the way it feels to have the cloth, gentle as it may be, so close to her stitches, her wound. “There are dozens of healers and novices here who could do that.”

“You don’t want my help?” Tissaia probes without pausing in her deft movements.

“It’s not that,” Yennefer says despite herself, despite knowing that the question is a rhetorical one. “You’ve just…”

“Perhaps these poor girls would like a reprieve from your abuses for a while,” Tissaia drawls blandly.

“I haven’t abused anyone,” Yennefer grouses.

“Hmph. You’ve been a terrible patient and you know it. There.” The bandage comes free easily, trailing across Yennefer’s belly as Tissaia moves it aside, continuing to scrub at the area around her wound.

“How are the stitches?”

“They did a good job of them. They’ll be fine.”

“Good then. Back to temple life as normal,” Yennefer says, lacing her voice first with false enthusiasm, then with the trappings of extreme boredom.

Tissaia exhales on a laugh, and is forced to pause her ministrations in favor of a short coughing fit. Yennefer listens attentively to the coughs, but they tell her nothing new.

“No more magic, is all I ask,” Tissaia finally says.

“Whatever you say. If you’re done there, I’m ready for breakfast.”

* * *

They must have given Yennefer some incredible herbs last night, because once she's up and about, and as the next hour or so wears on, the feeling in her abdomen becomes almost unbearable. She barely touches the breakfast she’d asked for, unable to stomach it. It’s a point of pride that she asks for nothing for the pain, until a wave of it strikes her so hard she doubles over with an outcry.

“Yennefer?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. Move your hand; let me see.”

Yennefer realises that she’s clutching at her side when Tissaia gives that command, reluctantly pulling her hand away to allow for an examination of the wound.

“You’re bruising.”

It’s a cursory look, and Tissaia does not sound alarmed, not immediately, but there's something tight in her voice, hiding below the surface, and a sinking feeling in Yennefer’s gut at the observation. If she is bruising, she is bleeding internally. And if she was not bruising an hour ago…

“You need to lie down,” Tissaia is saying, quietly but firmly, hand squeezing Yennefer’s arm.

Yennefer swallows, lets herself be led back to bed as Tissaia holds a murmured conversation with one of the healers. She can’t make out what they’re saying, but towards the end it sounds more urgent. And louder. They’re moving closer.

“...other methods,” someone is saying, reasoning.

“No!” Tissaia says emphatically. “I won’t have you cutting her open like some kind of barbarian.”

“It’s not _barbaric_ , it’s—”

“Bring me something alive,” Tissaia growls, lowering herself onto Yennefer’s bed.

“We’re all alive here?” The woman clearly has no grasp of magic.

“Something you don’t mind seeing dead,” Tissaia snaps in return. “An armful of wildflowers, a cat who won’t hunt mice; I don’t care what it is, as long as it doesn’t need to be alive when we’re done with it.”

Well, when you put it _that_ way, it's magic that sounds barbaric. Granted, _animals_ have always been out of the question in respectable circles. She hadn't thought Tissaia to have such a flare for the dramatic. Yennefer manages a brief chuckle at that, but it hurts. Her hand lands on her wound again, body straining.

“Be still; let me see again.”

“Haven’t you seen enough?” Yennefer gripes. The pain inspires an inexplicable need to be difficult.

“Stop complaining and listen. You’re going to have to heal yourself.”

Yennefer makes a noise of disapproval. “Seems it was just five minutes ago you said no magic.”

“Yennefer.” Something about the way Tissaia says her name gives her pause. “I cannot heal you. You may be fine but I am not willing to wait until you are dead to find out, so you _will_ need to do this.”

She's serious. This sounds like the opposite of a good idea. “Fuck, Tissaia, we’ve talked about this!”

“You have no other choice right now,” Tissaia hisses, hands moving from Yennefer’s torso. Suddenly they frame her face instead. Yennefer startles, fixing her gaze ahead when Tissaia guides her face about as if to make Yennefer look at her. “I understand that it is your own body and that you are not a healer, but you _are_ one of the most powerful mages I know. I will teach you the incantations. All you must do is listen and learn.”

“Fine,” Yennefer says after a moment’s hesitation. “Just… I've got nothing right now. Give me a minute; I’ll use the fire t—”

“You will _not_.” Yennefer starts again at the sound of Tissaia’s voice, stern and fierce. “Fire is unpredictable; you wish to make this complicated. I understand that it has been sixty years since your trials, but you must return to the basics. _Remember_ your foundation. Balance. Control. Life energy for life energy: the simplest of conversions. You won’t need as much as you think. _Do you understand_?”

For years, Yennefer's instinct in the face of anger, of any manner of _push_ , has been to push back, harder. But the ferocity in Tissaia's voice now, the tension in her hands, is different.

Yennefer does not realise she has moved until her fingers are already wrapped loosely around Tissaia's wrists, guiding her hands down and away, willing the tension to subside. She shifts her grip, thumbs gentling at Tissaia's palms.

For a moment, all is quiet, even the stir of Tissaia's breath. Then, when her hands go pliant and her breath shudders, Yennefer says, softly: “Teach me.”

When it comes to healing, there is a whole tome’s-worth of spells and incantations which have many uses, and there are many maladies and injuries which might be treated with one of several spells. All students at Aretuza learn the bulk of these, of course—a sorceress must be well-rounded, after all. But for most maladies, there is also a _best_ treatment. Some of this is a matter of opinion, as with anything else. But as problems become more specific, the options become fewer, and even the simplest of complaints have a variety of treatments ranging in efficacy.

Yennefer is very plainly aware of this truth. She understands that, while there are many _possible_ treatments for her eyes, few would be effective enough to pass the test. A farmer who lost his sight might be grateful to get it back at all, even if not the same as before. But it’s the girls who choose to follow lessons in healing through to the very end of their studies and who have the innate aptitude for healing magic who know the Elder and the herbs and have the skill required to mend even the most frustrating of injuries.

She has never heard the particular incantation that Tissaia speaks, but she can roughly translate it, if she thinks on it. She does not devote much effort to that task. Instead, she echoes the words as Tissaia’s hands slip out of hers. Tissaia repeats them, emphasising a syllable; Yennefer parrots the pronunciation. They echo each other this way five or six times as Tissaia moves an item from the bedside.

“Good,” Tissaia says, and the unmistakable sound of a pestle crushing herbs against the stone bottom of a heavy mortar follows the word. “Keep going.”

Yennefer concentrates on the words, on each individual syllable, and repeats the spell until it rolls off her tongue as easily as her own name. Until it speaks to her. Until it’s in her blood. Tissaia crushes, mixes, and is just smearing a paste of herbs across Yennefer’s abdomen, over her liver, when hurried footsteps return.

“That will do, thank you.” Tissaia says.

She does not ask permission before taking Yennefer’s hand, and somehow Yennefer isn’t terribly bothered. She closes her fingers around the bundle Tissaia presses into her palm, and cannot resist a pained chuckle at the mass of plant-life grasped in her hand.

“What have you brought? Half a shrubbery?”

“Focus, Yennefer,” Tissaia scolds, placing a thin gauze over the paste and guiding Yennefer’s free hand to rest atop it. “The basics.”

“Between this shrubbery and my liver lies the balance?” Yennefer asks, unable to resist the slight, playful barb.

“Let’s begin,” Tissaia says, and not for the first time Yennefer finds herself wishing she had her vision back solely to see if Tissaia acknowledged the joke at all.

But time is of the essence, or so it seems, so Yennefer steadies herself. Shifts her grip on the foliage in her hand. Adjusts her other hand where it lays beneath Tissaia’s. The pain and Tissaia's touch alike make concentration difficult. She struggles, focuses her will on the space between the flowers and the stone, and she speaks the words. Once, twice, three times. She speaks the words and _insists_ that they bend to her will, demands that the life energy in her right hand serve her purpose. The flora withers; her pain begins to dissipate.

“That’s enough,” Tissaia says, just as Yennefer senses that her fistful of flowers has no more to give. She's not completely healed, but it will do. “Well done.” Her voice seems unsteady. And then, inexplicably, her hands are on Yennefer’s face again, her lips on Yennefer’s brow. “Good girl,” she breathes.

A chill meanders its way up Yennefer’s spine at those words, and while she steadies herself, breathing and relaxing her focus, she allows her mind to wander, trying to dredge up some other memory of a time when Tissaia might have complimented her. She’s not even certain if she should believe that Tissaia said she was one of her best students. She comes up with nothing.

“You seem rather confident,” Yennefer mutters, mentally shaking herself free of the thoughts. “How do you know I’ve done it?”

“Foolish girl,” Tissaia murmurs, without judgment or malice, “how could you have done anything but?”

Yennefer stifles a quiet laugh at this. “You saved me again,” she says, for lack of anything better to say. “That makes us even.”

“You did all the work.”

“Well then. Help me wash my hair, later, and I’ll consider the debt repaid.”

It’s a thoughtless request, but it hasn't been properly washed since Sodden and the bath yesterday has made it feel all the filthier by comparison. She _does_ want it washed, now more than ever.

But if she surprises herself with the off-hand request, Tissaia surprises her more with a brief, weary laugh of her own. 

“It’s done.”

* * *

Very little changes over the next two days, but Tissaia does feel… better. Not by much, but it’s something. She is still weak, still fighting the morning retching sessions, stil devoting too much of her mind to controlling her body’s reactions to the offending substance within her, but… well, a little at a time. She finishes a bowl of stew for the first time since Sodden. She stands without having to lower herself back to the bed again to find her equilibrium. The volume of fluid in her chest thins a near-imperceptible amount.

Really and truly, anything is something. It’s only been six days, after all, even if the brief span has felt significantly more like a year.

Tissaia has almost forgotten Yennefer’s request, until she emerges from the bathing chambers and into their shared room only to have a corked vial the size of her palm held out to her. Weary, still coughing from her treatment, Tissaia takes the vial of viscous liquid, uncorks it, and lifts it to her nose.

The smell is almost cloying: sweet lilac, with the faint acid of gooseberries tempering the sugary, floral aroma. Yennefer had uncovered that particular combination of fragrances sometime in Virfuril’s court; Tissaia can remember greeting her at a ball, the faint, tasteful application of a perfume as Yennefer had brushed past dismissively. It had been much heavier, five or so years ago in Rinde. Appropriate, Tissaia supposes, for the rumours that surrounded the sorceress in those days.

She knows immediately that it is soap; another moment of thought, and she registers that it is for Yennefer's hair, very likely formulated with soapberries. The extract from the berries binds well to the oils in hair, far better than the average soap crafted from tallow or oils.

“How did you come by this?” Tissaia asks curiously, corking the vial and turning it sideways to observe the clarity of the well-made, well-strained concoction.

“A favour from one of the girls.”

Tissaia exhales on a breathy laugh. Silently curses the coughing fit that ensues. “You?” she asks around the last of the weak coughs. “Acquire a favour from one of these girls?”

“Well I’m not always insufferable,” Yennefer says, allowing her head to loll sideways. “Only when I want to be.”

“Which makes you even more vexing,” Tissaia mutters before she can stop herself.

Yennefer only smirks.

“How’s the quality?” she asks, extending her open hand.

Tissaia passes the vial back into Yennefer’s waiting palm. “Excellent,” she says. “Good texture. No sediment.”

“Well then. Perhaps I’ve found someone worthy of my future coin. Is it midmorning yet?”

“It is.”

“Then I believe we have a debt to settle," Yennefer says, pushing herself up out of the bed.

She does not reach for her wound—reaches for Tissaia instead.

“The sun just peaks over the roofs and into the courtyard around this time,” Yennefer offers as explanation.

“And so, the debt is repaid at the time and date of your choosing,” Tissaia drawls, allowing Yennefer to take her arm.

“I’m told it’s a beautiful day. And I have my soap. So yes.”

“You realise I’ve just finished another of my torture sessions?” Days locked away with Yennefer seems to have made Tissaia droll.

Still, Yennefer takes pause in the corridor, lips thinning slightly. “I can hear it in your breathing,” she replies thoughtfully. “It can wait a while, if you need.”

She surprises Tissaia with the sudden change of tack. Tissaia peers up at her, but Yennefer’s expression is quite blank. “It’s alright,” she says then, giving Yennefer’s arm the subtlest tug before taking a step off in the direction of the courtyard. “The task may be a welcome distraction.”

“When have you ever needed a distraction, Tissaia de Vries?”

“Hm. Most of the books in Nenneke’s collection are too religious or too elementary. Or both. The others, by and large, I have read.”

“So have one of our delightful errand-runners fetch you something interesting to read.”

Tissaia scoffs. “From where? Aretuza’s library?”

Yennefer makes her own noise of dismissal in return. “Surely there are volumes of interest in this world that are not found exclusively—or at all—in the cultivated libraries of Aretuza. I’ve read some very interesting tracts by randy housewives and lusty dowagers. Some are well-written; all are _fascinating._ ”

The idea of involving herself in other people’s fantasies is enough to make Tissaia’s nose wrinkle with disdain.

“Your silence tells me you are either intrigued or repulsed.”

“The latter, I assure you,” Tissaia grumbles. Yennefer laughs delightedly just as Tissaia presses open the door to the courtyard.

The air is cool, but the patch of sunlight they walk into is bright and warm—a delicious dichotomy of a day. Tissaia breathes the air, finding herself rather grateful for the excuse to be out of doors. The priestesses keep a beautiful garden—not in looks alone, but in utility. Many herbs and flowers are grown in the greenhouse, but the courtyard too hosts numerous valuable specimens of flora. Tissaia admires them for a moment before making note of a wooden chair sat neatly in reach of the sun, a pail of water and an ewer sat beside it.

“Seems you have this all arranged,” Tissaia observes.

“They’ve done it, then? Good. I don’t want a fuss, just a wash.”

Tissaia walks them over to the chair, passing by opposite the side that the water is on lest Yennefer trip or overturn something. Yennefer gropes about for the chair, settling into it with a little guidance, and leans back with a sigh of relief. Tissaia observes the setup. A towel rests beneath the ewer; all sit to the right of the chair on a low table. Not ideal, but at least the items are elevated.

Yennefer lifts her hair, letting it fall over the back of the chair. Tissaia smoothes a few wayward strands back as Yennefer’s eyes flutter closed, head tilted back.

The water is warm as Tissaia lowers the jug into the wide mouth of the pail. She wets Yennefer’s hair with care, working the water through it with her right hand, frowning at the weakness of her arm. Once satisfied, she takes the vial Yennefer proffers to her, uncorks it, and smoothes the fragrant soap through Yennefer’s hair. She ignores the length of her hair for now, favouring the root instead—massages the soap gently into the top of Yennefer’s scalp before circling to Yennefer’s side for a better angle on the back of her head. Neither of them speak for a long time; the task is meditative, and Tissaia breathes easily with the sun on her back, working slowly, thoroughly.

Tissaia is almost satisfied with the first wash when Yennefer sighs her satisfaction, breath gusting against Tissaia’s neck. “You’ve done this before,” she observes, tone airy, lips quirking slightly.

Irritated by the interruption and by the suggestive tone, Tissaia snorts. “Yes, I wash my hair regularly, and have for many years,” she replies dryly, evasively.

“Oh no. You’ve done this for other people,” Yennefer says, cracking her eyes open and offering up a lascivious grin. 

Tissaia frowns down at her, a brow arched. “Close your eyes, lest the sun find some other way to damage them.”

Yennefer’s jaw clenches as she obeys, and Tissaia feels a little uninvited guilt at the barb. The other woman recovers soon enough though, and it’s a testament to her own skills as an actress and manipulator that the wry grin reveals none of the momentary tension.

“Lovers?” she asks slyly.

Tissaia makes a noise of disapproval, circling around to the back of the chair to rinse the soap out of Yennefer’s hair. “Do you make a habit of insinuating yourself into the private lives of others?”

“Oh yes. It keeps things interesting,” Yennefer replies flippantly. “One can only drum up so much drama around one’s own person before becoming exhausted.” Tissaia strongly suspects Yennefer learned this the hard way. “So how long has it been? Since you’ve done this, that is.” Her voice drops as she continues. “Felt your fingers buried in a woman’s hair, bussing her scalp? Felt her pleasure as you tended to her; her trust as you kept the water from her eyes?” Yennefer seems to laze in the words, following them with a hum of pleasure. “Such a simple act,” she purrs, “yet so profound.”

There’s an eroticism to the words that takes Tissaia off her guard, making her swallow hard, and she recalls again the rumours that circulated, following Yennefer wherever she went some five, ten years ago. How she has put her charms to work against the unwary and the unguarded. But the knot in Tissaia’s belly is her own, and the lightheadedness has nothing to do with Yennefer’s magic.

Tissaia stops in the act of rinsing Yennefer’s hair and bends down. Her right hand in the length of Yennefer’s hair, the left bracing the ewer against her thigh, she says sternly into Yennefer’s ear: “If you are seeking an early end to this enterprise, you shall soon be satisfied.” She leaves no room for insinuation in her tone, only warning.

Still, Yennefer laughs. Quiet, delighted.

“I’ll pose a different question, then,” she says as Tissaia straightens, blinking and gritting her teeth to combat the wave of vertigo that comes with the movement.

“And what might that be?”

“Exactly how big is the stick up your arse?”

For a moment, Tissaia can do nothing but roll her eyes in reply. Then: “I’ll leave you in this courtyard.”

“You won’t.”

“What makes you so certain?” Tissaia asks even as she lifts the ewer again to continue rinsing.

“You’ve grown soft, these past years, sweet Rectoress,” Yennefer replies with a slight shrug, tone bored and much too casual. “Visiting me in Rinde, your notes after. Saying _please_ , your gentling hands.”

She seems to be carefully avoiding certain other subjects. Subjects with much more evidence of care, concern, temperance—and on both their parts. Tissaia does not know what to make of that, save that perhaps they reveal something of Yennefer too. She chooses not to focus on this overlong; instead, she settles the ewer back on the table and begins massaging soap into Yennefer's scalp again as if the present conversation were not happening at all.

“Triss thinks of you as a mother, you know,” Yennefer observes casually, tilting her head to relieve the strain in her neck. “What softness must she have seen in you even all those years ago to feel that way, I wonder?”

Tissaia frowns, wondering at the observation. “I aspire to be a mentor to all my students,” she says. “An exemplar of what a sorceress should be and represent, at court or otherwise.” The line is well-rehearsed, and it is true. Still, the observation is puzzling. “You are quick to saddle Triss with that opinion. Tell me, is that how _you_ feel about me?” she asks. She suspects she knows the answer to this, but given the circumstances, feels obliged to ask. She moves about the chair again, gives a little support to the back of Yennefer’s head with her left hand as she soaps the nape of her neck with her right.

For all that Yennefer yields easily to Tissaia’s movements, muscles lax in Tissaia’s hands, she still snorts caustically. “When did you ever give me the opportunity to develop that sort of attachment? For the myriad abuses you showered upon me those first few months, I should hate you still.”

“Your words and actions suggest you do not.”

“You haven't allowed me that either,” Yennefer says bitterly, and Tissaia looks down into her face curiously, frowning.

“I have allowed you very little, then,” she observes with some small irony. “Tell me, Yennefer: what is it you feel, if not hatred and not a familial attachment?”

Silence. Yennefer swallows audibly, gaze aimlessly searching the distance as Tissaia finishes with her scalp and moves to her back again, nudging Yennefer’s head up gently with her knuckles. Yennefer obliges, and Tissaia runs her fingers through the length of her hair, detangling it and working the soap through.

“For many years, you were the physical manifestation of Aretuza.”

“I am its face,” Tissaia allows, quietly. She works gently, absently, at a snag in Yennefer’s hair.

“Yes, the face of a great, hulking tower of bullshit,” Yennefer drawls with a sigh. Then, with a vaguely amused noise, she adds: “Well, in your case, a rather petite tower of bullshit.”

“ _Hmph_.”

“And I did hate you then,” Yennefer adds, as if to reassure herself and Tissaia alike that all was in order. “But.” She goes quiet for a moment, then sighs forcefully. “I understand now that you’ve done what you felt you had to. I won’t say you’ve always been _right_ , but you have followed your convictions. I guess that’s all anyone can hope to do.”

This, once again, seems rather… wise. It leaves Tissaia feeling unsettled though. “And if you suffered for those convictions?” she asks softly, feeling the weight of it keenly, centered in her chest.

“Then I overcame them. What else could I do?”

Pursing her lips, Tissaia runs her fingers through Yennefer’s hair one more time, ensuring that all the tangles are out. She reaches for the ewer, fills it half-way. She is weak; a little at a time will have to do.

“In saying that, you validate the approach I have employed for decades. Each manipulation. Not that it needed your validation,” she adds flatly, palm curled at Yennefer’s hairline, guiding the water away from her brow as she pours. “It is a method that has always worked.”

“For all but the girls you turn into eels?”

“Do you want the truth, Yennefer?” Tissaia asks suddenly, without thinking. Yennefer’s eyes flutter open, blindly seeking her out as she straightens to fill the ewer again. “I am tired.” The silence that passes between them is heavy. Tissaia drags her fingers through Yennefer’s hair, pours the water, and forbids herself to feel. “I dedicate weeks to learning each girl. Within a few days I know, by and large, who will Ascend. I am sometimes surprised—for better or for worse. Before their first trials are ended, I know precisely how to motivate each one. You were an easy read: apply a little pressure, and you will always return it in greater measure. What I underestimated was how exponentially the force you returned would increase. Now you stand against the entire world, and for what? You have nothing at all to gain in that battle.” While she had begun clinically enough, by the end Tissaia is speaking through gritted teeth, can feel herself trembling a little. Abandoning the jug, she lets the towel fall open, wraps it around Yennefer’s hair to begin drying it. She breathes. Adds, as levelly as possible: “I taught you to control your Chaos, but I could not teach you to temper yourself in other ways, because I could not see what needed tempering. For that I am sorry.”

There’s another span of silence as Tissaia circles around to face Yennefer again, holding the towel carefully as she lifts it to dry the water on Yennefer’s skin and at her hairline. She sees then how Yennefer’s jaw clenches and trembles, sees the tension building. Watches her carefully, and yet still does not wholly expect the outburst when Yennefer cries out in anger. Tissaia’s fingers clench in the towel, but she does not move.

“Why is it so difficult to hate you, you manipulative bitch? Are you playing your games even now?” she demands, everything about her fierce and raging.

“It has never been a game, Yennefer,” Tissaia says quietly, bristling slightly at the accusation, but not allowing it to enter her voice. She remains purposefully calm, instead—speaks, low and quiet. “And I have no motive to exploit you now; what could anyone possibly gain from that?”

“I don’t know, Tissaia. What did you gain from telling me to _forget the bottle_?”

The question feels out of place; Tissaia does not quite know how to approach it. She does not think of Sodden as an exercise in manipulation. She had brought the facts together, bounded them up, handed them to Yennefer with a choice. She frowns, settling the towel around Yennefer’s shoulders, but leaving her fingers tangled in the corners for lack of anything better to do with them.

“Nothing,” she says at last, searching Yennefer’s face for answers that refuse to appear, while simultaneously doing her best to level her voice, to keep the unsteadiness out of it. “And when I found myself alone on that hill, undeserving… I would have given myself for any one of our sisters who died there. If you do not believe me, then search me.” She almost demands it. Almost. “I have no control, no walls. Reach in and take what you must to satisfy yourself.” She doesn’t care anymore—doesn’t give a damn what Yennefer sees. She releases the towel, standing upright and tense, swallowing back the nausea and focusing her gaze somewhere off across the courtyard, anywhere but at Yennefer. A beat passes. Another.

“I can’t.” Yennefer says finally, quietly, and Tissaia does not know what to make of her tone. At the very least, the anger seems to have gone out of her. Tissaia chances a look down at her. Her eyes are gleaming. “The dimeritium works as well as any magical block.”

The explanation shouldn't surprise her, but it does. Tissaia swallows heavily before leaning down again, placing her hand on Yennefer's cheek. “Then I'm afraid you must trust me,” she murmurs, no longer able to keep the exhaustion from her voice.

Yennefer sits for a moment, still and quiet. Only when she leans her cheek into Tissaia’s open palm does Tissaia realise that she has been stroking Yennefer’s cheek. After a moment, Yennefer shifts, lifting her right hand, tracing the backs of her fingers up along Tissaia’s arm. Tissaia does not withdraw; instead, she waits, watching Yennefer’s face as her hand makes the journey. Her expression does not change as her fingers brush Tissaia’s shoulder, following her neck up to her face until she mimics Tissaia’s position, palm against Tissaia’s cheek.

But only for a moment.

Her hand slides back, fingers pressing lightly into the back of Tissaia’s neck, and Tissaia knows what is coming before Yennefer can act on it. Yennefer simultaneously draws herself upright in the chair and drags Tissaia towards herself, fingers digging into the nape of her neck.

And before Yennefer can foul it up, Tissaia kisses her. Warmly, hungrily. Instinctively. Yennefer tilts her chin, parts her lips, and Tissaia obliges. Yennefer’s free hand finds Tissaia’s waist; she pulls again, and this time, weak and unbalanced with Yennefer’s hand firm on her hip, Tissaia’s knees give way and she falls into Yennefer’s lap.

It’s not exactly dignified, but it hardly matters.

Tissaia tugs at Yennefer’s lower lip with her teeth, registers the broken tissue of her inner lip just as Yennefer whimpers in pained protest.

She remembers the bloodied lip two mornings prior, then. Yennefer presses a close-lipped kiss to the corner of her mouth, a bare moment of respite, and as she parts her lips to press in again, Tissaia’s thumb catches on her bottom lip, tugging it gently downward. She tilts her brow against Yennefer’s as the younger mage gasps, glancing down at the sores for a scant half-second.

“It’s nothing,” Yennefer murmurs.

But Tissaia is already far away, burning up with fever, head fallen against Yennefer’s shoulder. Yennefer’s hands on her throat, her chest, drawing the heat from her, replacing it with cold. Yennefer’s outcry muffled against her shoulder, mouth pressed hard against her trapezius not in a kiss, but in a desperate bid to ground herself, vying for the control slipping quickly from her grasp.

She brings herself back to the present with one hand fisted in Yennefer’s still-wet hair, the other pressed against one of the bruises below her collarbones. Panting, eyes burning, and altogether unsteady. Her head spins.

“ _Stupid_ girl,” she breathes, with much more emotion than she intends. She cannot manage her body and curb her emotions too.

“Tissaia?” Yennefer breathes heavily. She smoothes her hand across Tissaia's hip, up along her waist to her ribs, stroking softly. She is trying to soothe, but Tissaia barely registers it.

“You came too close,” Tissaia berates, furious and broken for reasons she cannot name.

“I was fine,” Yennefer insists, cocking her head in an infuriating gesture of dismissal.

“You were _not_ ,” Tissaia growls. “I have the bruises to show for it.”

Shell-shocked, Yennefer stills, staring into the space between them. In the silence, Tissaia wraps her fingers around Yennefer’s wrist, drawing the hand from behind her head to settle Yennefer’s fingertips against the bruise over her heart. “You—” Yennefer begins haltingly.

“Here,” Tissaia says, voice firm. “Here.” She moves Yennefer’s hand, lets her touch the twin bruise below her right collarbone. “Nothing for you to fret over. But Yennefer.” She lifts Yennefer’s chin, knowing as she does that it’s pointless: there’s no eye contact to be had, no way of making her see through a look the weight of Tissaia’s words. “Never again,” she adds with finality.

For just a moment, Yennefer is still. Then, shaking herself free of Tissaia’s hold, she says, equally unrelenting: “Best that you never find yourself mortally wounded or ill again, then.”

Tissaia hisses her displeasure and moves to stand, but Yennefer’s hand holds her fast at the waist. She lowers her right hand to Yennefer’s wrist, pressing at it weakly. When Yennefer doesn’t budge, she closes her eyes.

“Tissaia…”

She’s beginning to feel nauseated again.

“Let me go, Yennefer,” she commands, quietly, as levelly as possible, but she knows her voice trembles.

Without a word, Yennefer lowers her hand. Slowly, uncertainly. Tissaia moves to grasp at the back of the chair with her stronger hand, but catches Yennefer’s shoulder instead. She pushes herself upright perhaps too quickly: the vertigo comes on suddenly and gives no quarter. She’s going to be ill.

She takes an unsteady step, and then two more.

She falls to the cobblestones, scraping palms and bruising knees, and heaves.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s three days before they speak again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Courtesy of Miriam, i bring you "Chapter 5: The Softness-ening"
> 
> Don't uh... don't expect another update after only 5 days, k? K.
> 
> TW for mention of attempted suicide (show canon)

It’s three days before they speak again.

Or rather, it’s three days before _Tissaia_ speaks to Yennefer. By halfway through the following day, Yennefer has already suffered enough of the close-quarters silent treatment.

“This seems really immature, you know,” is the first thing she says, early in the afternoon of the day after the courtyard. The kiss. The fight.

Yennefer scowls to think on that. Of all the directions she might have expected their relationship to go after Rinde, or after Tissaia said _please_ , or at any other juncture in their history… Well, this is not where she expected to be. At all. No, no, sharing a brief snog with her once-despised Rectoress, after which the afore-mentioned Rectoress had very effectively lost her breakfast and then proceeded to give her the silent treatment… Well. This is the sort of shit you can’t make up.

And of course, Tissaia has no reply for the observation. Not even a bloody _cough_ , and she hasn’t stopped coughing since they arrived.

She thinks, henceforth, she’ll refer to the ill-fated snogging session in the courtyard as ‘The Incident.’

She tries again later: asks how Tissaia feels. Later still, she half-heartedly apologises for the bruises, wondering if a show of contrition will sway her. It does not. So she remarks on the food, instead, and when that doesn’t work either, she adopts a goading tone to drawl: “Come on, Tissaia—the kiss can’t have been _that_ bad.”

The following day, she stalks around the temple on Tissaia’s heels—or makes a noble effort of it, anyway; it’s difficult, when she needs help to find her way around—-nattering away. Some things, she says to get a rise. For the most part, however, she’s just hoping if she talks _at_ Tissaia long enough, she’ll eventually annoy her into breaking this absurd silent treatment.

Yennefer has never been a particularly patient person.

When she wakes the next morning, Tissaia is already gone from her bed. Yennefer has a vague, illogical but persistent recollection of Tissaia leaning over her, voice soft, hands gentle. Since she can _see_ her in said recollections, she assumes the whole thing was a dream (a ridiculous one, mind), but she can’t quite shake the feeling of Tissaia’s hand landing softly on her shoulder, or the sound of her voice—soothing, hushing, murmuring her name and a quiet _Alright, it’s alright._

She pushes these thoughts from her mind. She does not need Tissaia’s comfort, or her hands, or, damn it all, her voice.

If anything at all useful has come out of this situation, it’s that being left on her own in the courtyard had been an incredible incentive to get to know her surroundings a little better. Tissaia's silent treatment distracted her from the necessity over the past day and a half, but today she is determined to learn the temple. 

She has at least a vague idea of where her rooms are in relation to the kitchens, bathing chambers, and courtyard, but not much ken of how to get there on her own. So on the second morning after The Incident, with no sound of Tissaia in their room, Yennefer feels her way to the door and, quite simply, begins walking.

She’s been coming to terms with her blindness over the last few days, but frankly, she is trepidatious at best. Trepidatious, and not terribly keen on making a fool of herself. She composes herself with an air of absolute decorum: rises to full height (if doing so causes any discomfort, she ignores it), lifts her chin. She places her hand on the wall, and she walks.

She finds her way to the bathing chambers—not a difficult journey, really, with only one turn and a particular doorway to look out for—before anyone even takes enough notice to remark on the fact that their still-newly-blind patient is up and about and wandering the corridors on her own. She even manages to do so without running into anything.

Alright, so there _was_ the one table. Set against the wall, inconspicuous and unremarkable to seeing people, she's sure, the damned thing had all but jumped out at her. She’ll no doubt have a bruise on her hip to show for it. After _that_ incident, she walks a little further away from the wall, arm outstretched to touch it.

She heads back to the room afterwards (carefully slowing to avoid another run-in with the table, of course), deciding that these things should be conquered piece-meal. First, she’ll learn her way from their room to the various places of interest in the temple. Then she can learn her way between them, if the mood arises. Yennefer is nothing if not cocky, but losing an entire sense has tempered her overconfidence somewhat.

It shatters her confidence entirely when she returns to the hall their room is on and realises that she has no idea which door it is. The third? Fourth? She had been focused on the turn up ahead on her way to the bathing chambers, hadn’t bothered to count on her way out. She comes to a halt, hand on the wall, chewing her lip and thinking back.

“Oh. Are you alright? Is there something you need?” The voice is familiar, but again, Yennefer has trouble placing it. _That_ is a prime source of anxiety; Yennefer rarely knows precisely who she’s had dealings with and what those dealings were.

“Fine, no,” Yennefer says before rethinking the assertion. “Yes, actually. My room. I’m afraid I’ve lost track of which it is.”

“Ah. Yours is…” she pauses for just a moment. “Fourth on the right.”

“And I’ve passed two,” Yennefer thinks aloud, allowing her fingers to pass over the next doorframe, moving forward until she comes to the fourth door. “What’s that way?”

“Nothing, but a few more rooms and a window.”

That sounds right, to Yennefer’s recollections: a dead-end hallway of rooms dedicated to housing guests and patients who need longer-term care.

“I could place a marker on the doorframe for you?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“And are you… intending to just… wander about?”

Yennefer snorts. “Well, we are to be here awhile longer yet. It would behoove me to learn my way around, don’t you think?” She asks this with a tilt of her chin and an imperious look in the girl’s direction.

“Of—of course,” the girl replies, stammering slightly. “Would you like accompaniment?”

“I work better alone. Besides, I strongly doubt that I can wander anywhere that I could not be found.”

A soft breath of uncertain laughter, as if the girl is unwinding a little. “You’d be right, of course. I think I’d be afraid, nevertheless. Not that there’s anything frightening in the temple, but still.”

Summoning a noise of disapproval, Yennefer turns, settling her left hand against the wall. “Fear does not become a sorceress,” she says with the conviction of long years.

“Fear becomes us all, _I_ think. I’ve seen fear save lives.”

“And I have seen logic and skill accomplish the same,” Yennefer replies, making an exceptional effort at masking her lack of interest in the subject. She’d like to think she’s successful. “How can I get to the library from here?”

“The li—?”

But the girl seems to think better of her question. To her credit, she explains the route with precision, marking the corridors and doors Yennefer will pass along the way.

Yennefer nods, and continues her exploration.

By midday, she has at least some confidence in her ability to navigate about the temple, and only a few more bruises and a stubbed toe to show for it. There’s no sign of Tissaia, but the exploration serves as an effective distraction from thoughts of the other woman. For the first time in days, she has something outside of herself, outside of Tissaia, to wholly set her focus on.

It feels good to be in control. Which, she thinks, is an odd thing to feel under the present circumstances, but the familiarity gained instills a new certainty—a brand of confidence she has not felt in some time.

The act of reaching out, of finding her footing in the darkness, summons order out of disarray. She claims it, and makes it her own.

* * *

Yennefer takes supper in the dining room with the main body of acolytes and priestesses. There's an indefinite tension in the room that she can feel but cannot explain. She wonders if word of the mage, Yennefer of Vengerberg, incinerating the vast forces of Nilfgaard's army has reached them. Possibly. More probably, they know that an unknown mage committed the act. Tissaia _had_ rather dramatically suggested that they gruesomely take the life of a cat only a short time ago, but she would like to think the healers in their room recognised melodrama when they heard it. Also, Yennefer has not been a terribly friendly patient since she arrived, but she isn't certain she's done anything to intimidate the folk here outright. And besides, the typical tools she uses for that splendid art are out of reach; it’s hard to look like you own the place in plain, borrowed garments and with your hair a mess and a wound in your gut.

All that being said, she eats her meal in uncertain silence and returns to their quarters, where she quietly paces off some of the restless energy crackling on her skin.

Eventually, she decides that a bath will be the most welcome of reprieves. Unsure of how to find what she needs in the bathing chambers, but determined to make her way alone, Yennefer asks necessities off of a passing girl. Once laden with a towel, soap, a small jar of paste to coat her wound with, and a change of clothes, she sets her left hand to the wall and makes her way for the steps leading down to the bathing pools. (She is, of course, certain to avoid the table which had so offended her earlier.)

Her recollection of the main, public bath is hazy, at best. Yennefer avoids this, despite the sounds of at least one other bather nearby (she is a little too proud to ask for help here), and stays close to the wall as she feels her way uncertainly to what she believes is the smaller chamber in which she had recently bathed.

The fragrance coming from the room tells her it is. Lavender and mint, the dotting of other less fragrant herbs beneath. Yennefer frowns.

“Tissaia?”

Her voice sounds strange here, and all is still. She moves into the room. She cannot recall any obstacles to the right, where she’d been walked in before, so she moves to the left, searching out a table or a shelf to place her things on.

“ _Stop._ ”

Tissaia’s voice pierces the silence like an arrow, causing Yennefer to freeze, her entire body rigid and her heart in her throat.

“Have you come to drown?” Tissaia asks scathingly, her annoyance palpable.

Yennefer takes a breath, settles her body, wills the pounding of her heart to slow. “So you haven’t gone mute after all,” she forces herself to observe evenly, toeing forward with her right foot and finding the angled edge of the pool. Another step, no matter how cautious, and she may have fallen in.

“You’re at the steps,” Tissaia says, ignoring the remark.

She hadn’t realised there _were_ steps.

Yennefer looks in Tissaia’s direction for a long moment, wanting nothing more than to size her up, to know what emotion might be hidden in her face. At the silence that follows, she snorts caustically, turns to settle her supplies off to the side, and moves cautiously to the edge of the pool, rolling the legs of her trousers up as she dips her feet in. They come to rest on a worn, narrowly carved stone stair. When she shifts her foot to the right just a little, she finds a lower step several inches down.

For a while, they’re quiet. She hears Tissaia resuming her bath, the water splashing lightly with her movements. While she’d come for a bath of her own, she doesn’t move to undress—only sits, listening.

Finally, she reports with what she feels is well-deserved pride masked behind a casual demeanor: “I can find my way around alone now, mostly.”

Part of Yennefer has the wherewithal to be angry that she is falling into this trap again—chasing after some kind of response, anything at all, from the other woman. But only a very small part.

The image of Tissaia bent over her springs to mind again, the sound of her voice, soft and soothing. So when Tissaia does not answer her earlier disclosure, she asks curiously, “Were you in my bed, last night?”

No answer.

“When did you become so juvenile?”

Tissaia’s movements still. She clears her throat. When she begins speaking, it is slowly, as if she’s still collecting her thoughts. “Yennefer, you have it within you to be everything that I have never been,” she says at last. “And yet… you seem _so_ willing to die.”

This… is not what Yennefer expected.

She doesn’t know what she expected.

She scowls, scoffs—barely registers the compliment hidden behind the admonition. “Please, Tissaia. I haven’t actively chased death since that first night at Aretuza.”

“But you treat your life cavalierly, even now. I fail to see the difference.” 

“The difference is, _then_ , I wanted to die,” Yennefer snarls. She deflates quickly though, feels the corner of her mouth tug downward, and fights to tame her emotions and her expression for a moment before adding: “Now, maybe I just can’t see a reason to live.”

Tissaia sighs heavily. Yennefer can almost, _almost_ feel Tissaia’s eyes boring into her. “Because you lack a legacy?” she asks, mockery in her voice. “You survived that hill, and now what?”

Pursing her lips, Yennefer closes her eyes and lowers her face. There will be no statues, she thinks; no rejoicing. If she thought for even a moment that the North would build monuments and sing praises… well. Cintra was never alone in its distrust of mages. Destroying the Nilfgaardian army may have been a great feat, but it will not be viewed as gallant, not for long. “I’m not stupid enough to think we’ll be hailed as heroes, Tissaia.”

“So what?” Tissaia asks in return, sounding, incomprehensibly, a little angry. “You’ll return to squandering your time and talents in this fruitless, impossible pursuit of a child?”

Yennefer bristles, fingers clenching at the edge of the pool. “Don’t you see, Tissaia?” she spits, leaning forward to speak, voice hushed and dangerous. “What’s the point of any of it, if I’m only wanted for my skills and talents, or for beauty paid for too dearly? Why bother, if the only love afforded to me in this ridiculous _farce_ of a life has been for what I can give—for _what_ I am, and not who?”

She catches herself off-guard with this confession, and steels herself in its wake, breathing carefully. But for a long span, Tissaia is silent. Yennefer swallows and prepares herself to—to what? She grits her teeth, grips the edge of the pool all the more fiercely.

Just when Yennefer opens her mouth to speak again, Tissaia breaks the silence. “What more must I say to you, Yennefer?” Her voice is soft, pitched low, and there’s a tremor to it reminiscent of her pronouncement at Sodden: _‘You have so much left to give.’_ It’s the tone that made Yennefer follow her, drawn like a magnet to the fleeting sincerity in her voice. She bites her tongue, searching pointlessly in the darkness for some frame of reference, for whatever emotion Tissaia’s tone might conceal. “Or have you gone deaf as well as blind?” Tissaia continues, and just like that, the fragile edge to her voice shatters, giving way to something fiercer. Still quiet, though—still carefully contained. (Yennefer settles her right foot on the lower step.) “What is it that you need from me to—”

As Yennefer pushes herself forward, shifting her weight to her right foot, Tissaia stops, evidently seeing her aim. She begins again, voice pitched slightly higher, and this time the quaver in it is different. “For _one day_ , might you avoid causing Nenneke irritation?”

It’s clear enough that she is referring to the fact that Yennefer is now hip-deep in water fully clothed, but she cannot divine a reason for Tissaia to be so concerned. Yennefer latches onto the curiosity that rises, but her body seems to act of its own accord: her feet move forward and her hand stretches out, palm up, just as she asks with a teasing lilt that comes far too naturally to her: “What? Does she intimidate you?”

“She does not,” Tissaia snarls, “but she _has_ foisted my care off on others on _your_ account—and besides, I would prefer to have an amenable relationship with her when all _this_ is said and done!”

Yennefer stills at this, frowning. She had not considered Nenneke’s pride; recalls, now, the way Tissaia had dismissed her from the sudatory but a few days ago, and how Nenneke had not returned. Tissaia’s wellbeing will not have suffered for such treatment, but her pride will. And isn’t it right, that someone of her station—the Rectoress of Aretuza, who bows to no one, not even kings or queens—should receive the best of care, from the most skilled of hands?

Tissaia’s breath shudders; Yennefer’s hand is still outstretched.

“You may as well give me your hand,” Yennefer says quietly, feeling suddenly drained, but stubborn as ever, “because I'm coming to you regardless. And you may recall that I can’t see.”

She hears Tissaia sigh. There’s the barest moment of hesitation, and then Tissaia’s fingertips brush her palm. Water spills from her hand and winds, tickling, between Yennefer’s fingers. Yennefer closes her hand around Tissaia’s and pulls gently: feels the other woman stand, drawing forward just a little. She once again follows the line of Tissaia’s arm, settling her hand on her narrow shoulder.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re crying,” Yennefer murmurs.

Tissaia exhales forcefully through her nose; a loose lock of wet hair moves just slightly against Yennefer’s hand, telling her that Tissaia has turned her face away. “You were having a nightmare,” she says dismissively and all-too-carefully. “I’m surprised you don’t remember.”

Yennefer pauses for a moment, turning the words over in her head. And then she realises: she had not dreamed Tissaia’s presence at her bedside after all. She’d been there, at her side, speaking her name, willing Yennefer away from a nightmare she cannot remember. She was barely conscious at the time, but now she remembers that she’d been sweating, tangled in the bedding.

“My whole life’s been a nightmare,” she dismisses, reflexively summoning a supercilious demeanor. She did not come here to have the tables turned. “It all runs together.”

Tissaia makes a disapproving noise. “Ignorance does not become you, Yennefer. Where the struggles of women in this world are concerned, the adversity you have faced is middling at best.”

Yennefer snorts caustically, says bitterly: “You cannot begin to guess the pain I have faced, what—”

“Unwanted and unloved!?” Tissaia asks, brushing Yennefer’s arm away with the back of her hand. “You think yourself unique, but ask any of your sisters and you will find that their experiences are the same. The world cannot love us because it does not understand us. It will exploit us, use us as it sees fit, and _that is all_. Find a rare body who can see _you_ , beneath the veneer, and discover too quickly how fleeting that love is. If you wish to be understood, only the Brotherhood can give you that, and that is _not_ me trying to—to manipulate you into coming back to Aretuza. I would have you do that of your own accord.”

With the last words, Tissaia quells Yennefer’s coming argument before she can even begin. Tissaia barely touches her then—the slightest brush of her fingertips against Yennefer’s skin, through her tunic—a stark counterpoint to her frustrated tone.

“Only a sorceress can understand a sorceress,” Tissaia says then, with gravity, but barely above a whisper. “A mortal woman may come close, depending on her circumstances. A sorcerer, more hopeless yet, but with the benefit of longevity, of knowing what it is to pass many lifetimes, to see the world change over and over again around us. At least there, we have some common ground. But mortal men? They will use us over and over, and of them there are many. They know only that they may profit from our presence. And I have seen many more lifetimes of their exploitation than you, so do _not_ imagine that I do not understand your pain. That I have not felt it myself, and moved beyond it.”

Her voice catches at the end, her fingers curling into Yennefer’s shirt, and Yennefer swallows, staring aimlessly into blackness. Her hand finds Tissaia’s a moment later, fingers curling around Tissaia’s palm.

Yennefer purses her lips. Squeezes Tissaia’s hand. “Tissaia—”

“You should know,” Tissaia interrupts, still speaking quietly, shifting until Yennefer’s hand is held gently between both of hers, “regardless of what meaning it holds for you… _Yennefer_.”

Her voice strains. Yennefer instinctively, if a little hesitantly, covers Tissaia’s knuckles with her free hand.

“Tell me,” Yennefer murmurs, more softly than she expects.

Tissaia hesitates for a moment, then murmurs hopelessly: “I _tried_ to give you a friend in all this.”

Yennefer takes a few beats to process this, brows furrowed in thought. “I don’t understand,” she says at last, giving Tissaia a questioning look.

Tissaia exhales on a breath of silent, mirthless laughter. “Istredd,” she says softly, her tone unreadable.

Istredd. The wound he had inflicted in Nazair is still fresh, albeit forgotten of late. And it is all the more palpable because he is _right_. Of course he is. In those earlier days, Yennefer had thought that power alone was enough. It had taken thirty years and a murderous king to make her realise that _power_ had little to do with it. Longer still to come to the conclusion that what she sought was unattainable, and that power would have to be enough after all. If she could not be loved, the least she could do is have the world under her heel.

And what Istredd has to do with any of it is a mystery.

“Istredd betrayed me,” she says, keeping her voice level and the old hurt in check, willing herself not to nurse the newer wound. “He was not my friend.”

“Oh, Yennefer,” Tissaia replies, and there’s something pitying in her voice that makes Yennefer’s hackles raise almost immediately. She frees her hands from Tissaia’s, and Tissaia does not resist, nor does she try to touch her again. “Stregobor used him in the same way I used you. Your ascension depended upon your cooperation; do you think he felt any less obliged?”

“You were the Rectoress of Aretuza, Tissaia; he was a _boy_. You could have uncovered that information yourself, with a little work.”

“The nature of the secrets differed, yes, but the point stands: you were both manipulated into betraying each other. Stregobor pried your secret from Istredd, and it was Stregobor who elected to use it. But Yennefer, Stregobor did not set him upon you the moment you stepped through Aretuza’s doors. You had already developed a rapport with him when Stregobor saw your use, in the same way I marked Istredd later for you.”

Tissaia moves again, and Yennefer does not flinch or withdraw when her fingers brush Yennefer’s cheek. Instead, she stands, still and silent, processing. Considering. She still has her doubts, and Tissaia must sense them.

“Regardless of what came of it, Yennefer… That boy saw you as more than a misshapen girl plucked from a pigpen. He saw beyond your deformities. He saw _you. Cared_ for you.”

Yennefer works her jaw for a moment, standing still and quiet. Then, sighing, she replies: “You were eager enough to reveal that he’d done it.”

“No,” Tissaia replies forcefully. Then, quieting again, she repeats: “No. No, my dear, you were aware only of the betrayal, at the time; you knew nothing else.”

“And you remember so clearly, do you?”

“I do. Because I have regrets. Because I succumbed to weakness, as I’ve berated you for over and over again.”

“I still don’t understand,” Yennefer says, frustrated, but tempered by the soft hand at her cheek.

Tissaia sighs. “For you to believe that I had changed my mind about your court assignment, that I had moved you to Nilfgaard for reasons of my own… That was acceptable, Yennefer. You would have hated Nilfgaard, but you would not have come to harm. You were too clever for that, too capable. But for you to believe that I had shared such intimate knowledge, betrayed you so deeply to those who would use that knowledge against you… That was unthinkable. And once I had succumbed, it was too late; I had no recourse but to speak the truth.

“So you see, my dear,” Tissaia finishes, barely above a whisper, her voice all cracked glass, “I’m afraid I failed you quite terribly.”

Yennefer wants to be angry. She wants to rail, and scream, and fight. It would be so much easier to give in to such emotions; they are familiar and they are easy. But she cannot summon one drop of anger, because Tissaia’s hand has dropped from Yennefer’s face to her arm, and she is holding on, her breath trembling again.

“You _are_ crying,” Yennefer observes, but does not accuse.

“Inexcusable, I know. I’m afraid—”

“Don’t.” Yennefer sighs, lifts her hands. Finds Tissaia’s shoulders, her neck, her jaw. She leans forward, and Tissaia seems to understand her aim. Their foreheads touch, and Tissaia heaves a great, shuddering breath. “I’ll forget, when we leave here.” It’s the best she can do, and she means it. Because if anyone deserves tears, after the past week or so, it’s Tissaia. She’s suffered more than enough, and continues to do so—lungs heavy, body weak, willpower bound up in resisting the poison inside of her. Yes, Yennefer knows Tissaia’s hard stance against weeping sorceresses, but she cannot see barring Tissaia from her tears now.

“Will you,” Tissaia remarks with an unsteady breath of laughter, leaning in a little. The increased pressure on Yennefer’s brow is enough to demonstrate her thanks.

Yennefer hums agreement, stroking Tissaia’s jaw, the muscle jumping beneath her thumb. Tissaia leans in a little closer still, sniffling; Yennefer tilts her chin, lets their noses brush.

“And you accuse me of being soft,” Tissaia murmurs.

Yennefer grins, all teeth, and utters back: “You are.”

“Mm. Didn’t you come here for a bath?”

“It can wait a little longer.”

* * *

Tissaia helps to apply the paste that keeps the water from her wound (it looks to be healing well, she reports, but still best to protect it), and later she removes it as well, perched on Yennefer’s bed with a warm cloth and that same, deft touch.

She is wheezing slightly, which is not unusual, but it seems somewhat more persistent tonight.

“You should take your medicine,” Yennefer counsels, bending her arm up to brush the backs of her fingers lightly across Tissaia’s wrist.

The woman keeps working, dismissing the notion with a grunt. “It will settle,” she says. “I would rather use it only if I have to.” 

Yennefer sighs, drawing her mouth into a tight line for a moment as Tissaia cleans the wound itself. This is the worst part; she’s gentle, and the stitches have held well, but she can always feel the tug at them. It’s not painful, but it is incredibly uncomfortable—mentally as much as physically.

“Ever stubborn, I suppose.”

“Hm. You’re one to talk.”

The wheezing grows worse as the night wears on, and an incessant cough joins it. Yennefer lies awake, staring in Tissaia’s direction, until finally Tissaia sighs.

“Yennefer.” There’s no question in her voice. Whether by light or the sound of her breathing, she already knows Yennefer is awake. “The medicine is in a vial, on the table.”

“And you can’t get it yourself?” Yennefer quips in a delicate barb even as she sits upright, reaching for the table.

“It’s dark,” Tissaia replies, “and you’ve become so _good_ at being blind.”

Yennefer snorts at this, running her hands carefully across the table between their beds. “Bitch,” she mutters, with a surprising amount of affection. She finds the vial resting beside a thickly-bound book, then feels her way to Tissaia’s bed to sit on the edge of it.

Tissaia takes the vial easily from her hand, and while she doses herself, Yennefer considers the light in the room; clearly Tissaia is perfectly capable of seeing after all. Maybe not well, but enough. The fire crackles merrily, and that may be enough to illuminate Yennefer’s position, the bottle in her hands. She doesn’t recall the phase of the moon when they arrived at Sodden. Triss would know.

 _Triss_. Yennefer swallows, thinking about her. And that thought leads to Sabrina, of course. She knows they were both alive after the battle—Tissaia had reported as much days ago—recovering under the care of medics and mages alike, but she can’t help but wonder what will come of them. She lets her mind wander, considering. Considering what has happened since she and Tissaia left Sodden, what will come to pass for all of them. It’s a distracting line of thought, and one that consumes her for a while.

Eventually, she realises that Tissaia’s wheezes have diminished and her coughs have grown more scarce. She stirs as Tissaia pushes the vial back into her hand again.

“You’re back,” Tissaia murmurs. At Yennefer’s noncommittal grunt, she breathes half a laugh, fingers brushing across Yennefer’s hand. “You went somewhere else for a while.”

“I was thinking,” Yennefer says vaguely, fingers twitching at Tissaia’s touch.

“Well, it’s late. You can think in your bed,” Tissaia says, and if Yennefer didn’t know better, she’d think the woman was teasing her. She hears Tissaia move, then, feels the shift of her weight in the bed.

But Yennefer does not go to her own bed. Instead, she settles the vial back on the side table, manoeuvres herself beneath the blankets, and presses herself against Tissaia’s back.

Fifty years and countless lovers since her initiation, and Yennefer is still not accustomed to such contact; she has never had much occasion for the intimacy of an embrace. But she instinctively wraps her arm around Tissaia, drawing their bodies close together, and it’s right and comfortable and good. But there’s something wrong, too; this close, Tissaia feels much too small. Yennefer has been with enough men and women alike to know that there isn’t enough to her now, no matter the material of her gowns or what she wears beneath them. Her fingers find the ridge of Tissaia’s ribs to confirm the feeling. Tissaia tenses slightly at the touch, or at Yennefer’s sigh gusting against her neck, or—

 _Or_ Yennefer doesn’t know. But when Tissaia moves, wrapping her fingers around Yennefer’s hand, Yennefer allows herself to be guided, lets Tissaia bring her arm to the front of her body again, their fingers tangled slightly, arms folded together.

“You’ve lost weight,” Yennefer observes belatedly with quiet concern, movements stilling.

“ _Hm_. What gave you that idea? The fact that I could barely eat for most of a week, or the constant vomiting?”

Beyond the truth of it, there’s a dry humour to her drawling words. Yennefer manages a quiet laugh at the absurdity of it, and Tissaia chuckles too, though a cough interrupts her. When she’s done, when the spell leaves her, her muscles relax—impossibly, improbably, her body unwinding against Yennefer’s.

“I have missed your lip these past days, you know,” Yennefer mutters into Tissaia's ear; Tissaia’s hair tickles her nose, freshly scented with rosemary and, curiously, a subtle hint of black pepper, muddled and tempered with something else, something crisp and light that she cannot place. She takes a long, slow breath, wondering, as Tissaia speaks.

“Oh. It is rarely me giving you lip. Though I appreciate you giving me the day to miss yours.”

“And did you miss it?”

“No.”

“Ah. You see,” Yennefer growls, curling her arm a little more tightly around Tissaia’s body, impulsively pulling her closer, until she can feel her own heartbeat echoed against Tissaia’s back, “where do you think I learned to be a wiseass if not from your persistent, snotty barbs?” But there is no rancor in her words—only fondness.

Tissaia chuckles softly; the movement of her body against Yennefer’s is like a drug. She files this information away as something of a mental note: make Tissaia laugh; touch her while she’s laughing.

But there are more pressing matters, at the moment—matters that make Yennefer move her fingers lightly against Tissaia’s as she sighs into her shoulder. 

“You _are_ eating more?”

“I am. And don’t fret; it makes my teeth itch.”

“I am _not_ fretting,” Yennefer denies vehemently. Although she tries not to admit it even to herself, however, if she is not fretting, she is somewhere very close to it.

Tissaia snorts her disbelief, but only shifts her head, finding a more comfortable position against the pillow.

“Sleep, Yennefer.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was up to 8.8k and giving me anxiety just thinking about editing it. So the tentative "chapter six" i had marked out will just have to do... forgive the brevity of this one (only 4k), and the long wait. Another 5k or so will come after this, hopefully soon - it is written, just needs a lot of work. Hopefully sharing this with you all will alleviate some of the stress of editing the back part of what was to be one almost 9k word chapter! xD
> 
> (Mistakes in this chapter mine.)
> 
> Lots more discussion of Chaos & magic ahead, mostly my own headcanoning.

As Tissaia’s condition improves, she busies herself with parchment and ink—brief notes and missives sent to far-flung places: Sodden and Gors Velen, of course. Acquaintances in Maribor and Brugge, who might shine some light on the nearby battles, on the status of Foltest’s army and the Nilfgaardian invaders. It’s difficult to know who to trust, but she supposes at some point, one must reach out in faith. Ellander and the temple aren’t so far out of the way as to be completely uninformed, by any means, but word does not travel quickly enough for Tissaia’s tastes, and she does not wish to be the fourth or fifth-hand recipient of news given at the discretion of the deliverer with all his own notions and speculations twisted invariably into accepted fact. She wants first-hand knowledge. They will need it, if she and Yennefer are ever to leave these modest, shared chambers behind with any idea of what they are walking into.

She does not know what the future holds, and that great chasm of uncertainty bores a deep well of anxiety within her. Yennefer does not know— _cannot_ know—that the second night she twines her body around Tissaia’s, a week after the first, the medicine quells the symptoms, but not the cause of the asthmatic episode—she cannot know that it’s her own steady breaths and the beat of her heart that ultimately settle the unprovoked panic clawing at Tissaia, allowing her to breathe—just to _breathe_. 

Will she be accepted back at Aretuza? Does she _want_ to be? (She does. She does—maybe not as Rectoress, for she _is_ , as she had told Yennefer, so very tired, but Aretuza is all she knows; she must have that stability or the very ground beneath her feet may crumble.) Never has she known as short-sighted a group of people as the Chapter, Stregobor at its head, conniving and breeding nonsense and fairy story fears when the Continent cries for real aid. Artorius is little better, still practically a child, the spineless Toussaintois bastard, the both of them hiding behind illusion magic and delusional thinking. Tissaia is older than any of them, has seen every bit of it before, and yet when those two shake hands on something it’s as if her opinions somehow take up less space than her body. The Brotherhood had hardly batted an eye at the murder of scores of girls at Stregobor’s hand, in many cases choosing to ignore the repugnant acts, but who knows how they will react to the deaths of a dozen or more of their own?

That, paired with the realisation of Yennefer’s power… well. They may revel in it, or they may gather a lynching mob—or, better, allow a throng of commoners to do so without recourse. Far-sighted as she strives to be, Tissaia cannot begin to predict the outcome.

She must know the mood at Thanedd.

“You’re thinking awfully hard again,” Yennefer says.

Tissaia glances up briefly, then again for a longer look. They’ve both taken to eating in the dining hall from time to time, when there are no outsiders about to remark on their presence here; Yennefer carries a bowl and a flagon now, the flagon clasped carefully in the same hand that rests against the doorframe, knuckles brushing wood. Peering out the window, Tissaia frowns; the sun is high, the hour later than she expected.

“How do you come by that idea?” she asks, watching as Yennefer moves into the room, abandoning the wall as she steps carefully towards the small table that Tissaia has presently taken over for her work.

“I don’t know. I can hear you breathing.” Yennefer shrugs slightly as she holds out her right hand; Tissaia reaches out to take the flagon from her. “And there’s a hum, like a—” Yennefer shakes her head slightly, lips pursed “—a quiet conversation in the next room, maybe.”

“A hum?”

“Mm.”

Yennefer appears to be thinking on this, so as Tissaia takes the bowl from her, she says quietly: “You didn’t need to do this.”

“You need to eat,” Yennefer says with a disapproving frown.

“I’m aware, thank you. However, you, specifically, did not have to do it.”

“Hmm.” It’s little more than a guttural sound. Yennefer reaches out for the other chair, fingers splayed, moving carefully. When she finds it, she pulls it away from the table slightly and lowers herself carefully into it.

“The hum,” Tissaia prompts, dismissing the previous subject; it isn’t worth the trouble. The pottage of pork, lentils, and leeks is hearty, but not quite suited to Tissaia’s palate. She tears off a bit of bread, using it to chase resolutely after a few motes of grease from the pork fat before balancing it on the rim of her bowl. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Yennefer shrug again, lifting just one shoulder and tilting her head. “You’re better at detecting shifts in Chaos than anyone alive; you know what it’s like to sense someone’s presence. Gods, you can detect magic from a girl who’s never used it before half a Continent away,” Yennefer says with a broad, dismissive gesture of her hand. “ _But,_ ” she says after a moment, chewing on the word, gathering her thoughts before adding somewhat helplessly: “You’re… fuzzy, but you exist again.”

Tissaia snorts quietly, thinking over this for a moment as she chews a bit of leek. The revelation that Yennefer could not read Tissaia’s thoughts on account of the dimeritium had eventually led to other discussion, other observations and revelations. Dimeritium has long been known to severely inhibit the flow of Chaos, especially in the body of a mage in physical contact with it; it is also fairly well-known that particularly powerful mages are capable of resisting these effects. Tissaia herself is among them.

But Tissaia has never had dimeritium _inside_ of her. As things stand, there have been times in the last span of days when she has been grateful just to be upright, and not writhing on the ground like a creature possessed. Other, weaker mages might not be so lucky; other mages might very well be dead.

After a bit of focus, Yennefer had come to a particularly telling, if somewhat belated conclusion: the Chaos that threads through the air, surrounding them and moving through them, never still, ever changing, stops dead in the place where Tissaia stands. She had compared it to a sudden void, noticeable only when they stood close, or upon focusing carefully upon it. Mages’ ability to sense the presence and thoughts of others relies upon the movement of Chaos—the presence of magic by the disruption of Chaos’ flow; yet Yennefer had explained that, after a bit of examination, she could sense Tissaia’s physical presence by the utter _lack_ of it.

It’s research Tissaia would be interested in, if she herself weren’t the only viable subject.

Originally, Tissaia had entertained half a day’s worth of intermittent experimentation with regards to her ‘nonexistence.’ Experiments which proved Tissaia would not be able to quietly secret herself away in the temple again if she wanted peace from the other woman; by the end of it, it became quite clear that the absence of moving Chaos in her body was as good as a rudimentary sense of sight. It’s fascinating, the way Yennefer’s habits have changed since then, the way she moves when Tissaia is nearby. She had already gained visible confidence moving around the temple; the practiced familiarity with her surroundings coupled with her newfound ability to sense Tissaia’s presence has given her a new level of mobility and confidence.

And now, she argues that Chaos moves in Tissaia again. Maybe not a great deal of it; Tissaia is certain she could feel it, if it were moving freely through her body, but it is an interesting thought, nevertheless. Tissaia frowns.

“Quit ruminating and eat,” Yennefer scolds after a span, brows knit.

“I am eating,” Tissaia says defensively, scowling as she spoons up another mouthful of the stew.

Yennefer grunts disapproval, but lets her head loll sideways, eyes fixed on Tissaia, seeing but not seeing. “Anyway, you should be celebrating right now.”

“Celebrating what?”

Yennefer’s look transforms into one of overt disbelief. “Did you hear me?” she asks, scoffing slightly. “Or did you not understand? There’s Chaos moving in you again. Not a lot, but you’ve either scrapped enough dimeritium or gained enough control—or both—to let Chaos have its way again. You’ll have your magic back.”

“I heard and I understood,” Tissaia replies flatly, flicking her fingers dismissively. “But nothing is yet gained.”

For a moment, Yennefer sits still, processing. Then, with a quiet snort, she sits back in her chair, shaking her head slightly with a bemused half-smile on her lips. “We _are_ alike, you and I,” she says, leaning her head back until her eyes are cast up to the ceiling. “We must have it all; a little won’t do.”

“It will not,” Tissaia confirms. At least not at this juncture. A shadow of control is nothing to her, certainly not when she cannot even feel it. She closes her eyes, searches herself for a moment, and cannot dredge up even the faintest hint of magic.

No, either Yennefer is wrong, or it is simply too little to act on.

Thoughtfully, however, she furrows her brows.

“Any word?” Yennefer asks, lowering her face again.

Tissaia fixes her gaze on Yennefer’s eyes, falling back on the most rudimentary practices of thought transference. _The basics_ as she’d demanded of Yennefer so recently. She swallows hard against the nausea that rises, steels herself against the dizziness.

“Not much,” she says absently, quietly. “Confirmation that the war is won.” (Yennefer expends one note of scoffing laughter at the absurd bit of old news.) “Sabrina recovers, but slowly.”

This causes Yennefer a moment of thoughtful silence. After a beat, she nods, opens her mouth to speak. Tissaia speaks first.

“I sent separate letters to inquire after our friends, hoping to attract less attention.” One letter inquiring after multiple mages, after all, would surely show her hand. No, no, better to inquire after the women individually, as friends. “No word on Triss yet.”

Yennefer’s expression tells her that she has, at the least, guessed the direction of Yennefer’s thoughts; however, she cannot be certain that it has any more to do with Chaos than with her knowledge of Yennefer’s relationship with her fellow sorceresses. Yennefer and Sabrina had always been at odds with each other. Triss, on the other hand—Triss had always seemed fond of Yennefer, and Yennefer of her. Their friendship dated back to a few years after Yennefer had joined Aedirn’s court.

Finding herself too weak to continue the endeavor, Tissaia abandons her attempts to read Yennefer’s thoughts, for now. Gathering herself instead, she brushes her fingertips across a note set off to the side. “Do you wish to know the names of the fallen?”

A beat. “No,” Yennefer says, voice a little strangled. 

Tissaia watches the emotion bloom across her features with a quiet sigh. “There is talk of building a memorial.”

“Good,” Yennefer replies brusquely, crossing her arms and averting her gaze. “Now eat.”

“I will,” Tissaia assures her, pushing the bowl carefully to the side. “In a bit.” At the look Yennefer shoots her, Tissaia sighs. “I don’t have the stomach for it, at the moment, Yennefer. And I don’t need coddling.”

“Forgive me for being concerned,” Yennefer mutters, voice coarse, sinking a little further down in the chair, not unlike a petulant child.

Tissaia studies the other mage thoughtfully, brows furrowed. Yennefer had displayed a great deal of anger in the first few days after their arrival at the temple—anger Tissaia had written it off as being misdirected, due a great deal more to Yennefer’s own suffering than anything else. However, it’s become clear of late that Tissaia’s condition grates at her as much as her own blindness—her abdominal injuries are all but healed, though she’s been directed to continue to _rest_ for at least another week. Tissaia has become frustrated, even angry, at the risks Yennefer has taken, the danger they have put her in, but Yennefer seems disgruntled at the very notion that Tissaia is not well.

Perhaps, Tissaia muses, what troubles her so is the reality that if something like this can happen to Tissaia, it can happen to anyone. 

And Tissaia has never imagined that she could be brought so low. She does wonder, sometimes, how she might appear to others. But Yennefer and her anger is the only case she has, and she has no desire to go parading her weakness about in front of others who know her as the ancient and powerful Archmistress of Aretuza. No, no, Yennefer is quite enough of an audience for that, and despite the trust that has bloomed between them, even _that_ demonstration of weakness is enough to humiliate her at times. Yennefer’s blindness, as it turns out, is the only blessing there.

Guilt washes over her at the very thought. Being remotely grateful for the other woman’s disability is dark indeed, even for the woman who once stood over the bed of a young girl, saving her life and mocking her existence across a single breath.

Sighing, she closes her eyes tightly against the shame bubbling inside of her. At first, Yennefer is quiet; then, with a muffled noise, she leans forward. Tissaia’s eyes fly open to watch her when she stirs, and she finds that Yennefer’s expression is fierce and concerned, her mouth drawn tight and her body rigid.

When she speaks, however, her soft voice belies the turbulence in her gaze. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Tissaia replies, trying to shake herself free of a younger Yennefer, and other students besides—given all she could give, indeed, with kindness in one hand and cruelty in the other. Every one broken down, forced to rebuild herself from rubble. Forced to strive, to unbecome and to become again, in the likeness of sorceresses who had gone before them. In the likeness of which Tissaia would have them recreated.

She does not have the constitution for this. Not now.

“Tell me,” Yennefer insists, voice still soft. At Tissaia’s silence, she leans forward further, reaching across the table and towards Tissaia.

Tissaia removes her hand from the table, out of reach.

“ _Tissaia_.” Yennefer withdraws as well, arm resting upon the smooth wood as she closes her eyes for a moment. “Tell me what’s wrong. Don’t leave me with this… disquiet.”

“If disquiet is what you feel, perhaps you should examine your own state of mind,” Tissaia says coldly, regretting the words and tone even as she speaks, but knowing no other way. Yennefer has been witness to enough of her weakness, these past weeks.

The younger mage’s lips draw into a thin line, and Tissaia watches her for a long moment—watches the struggle that unfolds upon her face, the disgust that pulls at her mouth. The way she fidgets, a single fingernail tapping out a tattoo upon the table’s surface.

“ _Fine,_ ” she says at last, retreating entirely back into herself, back straight and body rigid in the chair across from Tissaia’s. “If you have no need of me, I’ll be in the baths.”

* * *

Yennefer has had many nightmares since Sodden—has awakened over and over in various states of panic, of pain, of guilt and fear and rage. But the dreams are such intangible, far-flung history by the time she wakes that she does not remember them; she is only ever left with the haunting shadow of whatever emotions bound the imaginings to her.

The next night, she does remember. The scent of charred flesh, the sound of endless screams, are so close and so visceral that she wakes coughing, crying out as she tries to rid her lungs of smoke and ash, her mind of the weight of thousands of dead at her hand.

When she feels the hands upon her, pressing her down, holding her still, she lashes out instinctively, wielding her magic like a blade.

There’s a strangled outcry, a plea, and as her arm flies out, a ferocious gust of wind propelled from her palm, a weight lands across her ribs—a body, flung against her own, hardly a child's weight. She writhes, a cry caught up in her throat as she struggles to free herself of the weight.

A voice speaks her name, over and over, breaking through her thrashing desperation; she knows it. Not a minute ago, she’d been certain the woman was dead.

“ _Tissaia_ ,” she rasps, fisting and unfisting her hand as she lets it fall; it lands against Tissaia’s knees and she grasps at the other woman, the fingers of her other hand tangled desperately in the bedclothes.

Tissaia shifts, pushing herself upright again with slow effort; Yennefer clings to her knee, forcing herself to breathe, forcing herself away from the battle, away from the fire and ruin. She chokes on a sob at the residual terror and disgust, blinking away the blackened landscape. She presses her fingers harder into Tissaia’s flesh, a desperate, half-conscious bid to ground herself in reality. Tissaia must sense it, for her hand lands on Yennefer’s chest again, palm against her collarbone, fingers curled against her shoulder.

“Hush. Hush, Yennefer. You’re safe. It’s over. You’re safe; I have you.”

The words come unremittingly, an endless stream of susurrant murmurs. She latches onto them, her free hand wrapping around Tissaia’s wrist and holding on as she breathes. The wild fury of flames leaves her. The screams diminish. She is no longer on the battlefield, but in the Temple of Melitele. The brittle ground is replaced with a warm bed. The only sounds are Tissaia’s murmuring and her own laboured breathing.

Magic hums in the air. Hers, not Tissaia’s. No, Tissaia cannot—she…

The realisation of how close she’d come to harming the other woman, instinctive or not, strikes hard and fast. She flexes her fingers, reaching across Tissaia’s lap in a desperate attempt to drag her closer, the fingers of her other hand closing more tightly around the woman’s wrist.

“Fuck,” she breathes, voice catching, eyes burning with tears she had not realised she was crying before now. “I nearly—”

“ _Hush_. It’s over.”

“Tissaia—”

“Best to forget it happened, Yennefer,” Tissaia quips quietly, squeezing her shoulder. “I will only forgive you for it once.”

For just a moment, Yennefer lies there, absorbing the words. And then, she laughs. Darkly, a little manically, for the absurdity of the words and the stark contrast of Tissaia’s dry humour with the dream that came before.

She sobers soon enough, sighing as Tissaia’s hand moves from her shoulder to her hair.

“You were having a nightmare again,” Tissaia prompts softly, more question than observation, smoothing the hair from Yennefer’s brow.

In spite of herself, Yennefer once again finds herself soothed by Tissaia’s touch, her voice. “Sodden,” she says roughly, shivering. “You were…” She cannot bring herself to finish the sentence. “And everyone else. All sixty of you. By my hand. _Me._ ” She takes a great, shuddering breath, half-formed resentment rising within her. “As if an entire fucking army wasn't enough.”

Tissaia sighs above her, the faintest wheeze hidden on the breath as she withdraws; after a moment of resistance, Yennefer releases her wrist. Both her hands land on Yennefer’s arm, then, the fingers of one pressing beneath Yennefer’s palm.

“Do you blame me?” Tissaia asks, voice quiet, tone unreadable as Yennefer succumbs to the pressure against her hand, releasing the vise-grip on Tissaia’s leg and allowing Tissaia to curl her fingers around her hand.

Yennefer, too, sighs, closing her eyes as if the act might block out the visions. The memories. Tissaia, urging her to _forget the bottle_. Again, and again, and again. Tissaia, charred like the Nilfgaardian corpses. No, no, that isn’t right—Tissaia is here. One good thing. But that also, is wrong—she’d saved the Continent, hadn’t she? Supposedly? Hundreds of thousands of other lives that Nilfgaard would have destroyed simply because it is Nilfgaard’s way. Destroy all. No prisoners—only death.

She has just convinced herself of this when Tissaia speaks again, asking the same question with a little more urgency, with her fingers squeezing Yennefer’s arm tightly, willing her to speak. “Do you _blame_ me, Yennefer?”

Yennefer cannot interpret the tone—only what the words dredge up in her. Anger. Guilt. Fear. And an almighty need to be held, touched, comforted— _loved_. Such a simple thing, which has ever been beyond her reach, an achievement outside of her ken. Perhaps one barred from her by destiny—she does not know.

She does know, unquestioningly and with learned certitude, that Tissaia’s hands are gentle and her touch light. And so, without thinking, she grasps at Tissaia’s knee again, curling her body, shifting away from the pillows. The sob escapes her just as she presses her face into Tissaia’s lap.

Like a promise kept, Tissaia’s hands land on her—her arm, her head. Fingers comb gently through her hair; a thumb rubs endless, soothing patterns against her sleeve.

“Don’t go,” she musters, body quavering as she desperately holds back the tears that threaten, fingers clenching into the fabric of Tissaia’s gown. “Stay. _Stay_.”

“I’m here, Yennefer,” Tissaia says, her voice insistent, her hand pressing the loose hair away from Yennefer’s face and behind her ear. “You have me. You have me; _hush_.”

When she wakes next, it is to the sound of birdsong, her head nestled against Tissaia’s breast. Arms curl around her, and all is still.

* * *

Yennefer’s nightmare haunts Tissaia for days. The reality of it is all-too intimate, and she finds herself watching Yennefer closely, treating her with thinly-veiled concern.

It is, after all, she who brought this on.

She wonders: had the tables been turned, would she have had it within herself to do what she had asked of Yennefer? Did she possess the strength of will to destroy thousands of lives in a single ruthless act? Perhaps, if called upon. Did the deep well of emotion required to fuel such power exist within her? It had once; now, she is not so certain. For hundreds of years, she has suppressed, repressed; it is now a well-practiced art. In many things, she has taught herself almost not to feel at all. After over 500 years, could she have summoned forth the rage, or pain, or anything at all to enable such destruction?

She does not know.

It had not been an easy thing to ask of Yennefer, but it had also not been easy to imagine that either of them might survive the endeavor.

And yet, they are here. Scarred. Battered. Together. Whether by some absurd fluke of circumstance or something else—destiny, fate, call it what you will—she does not know. What she does know is this: the woman in the bed beside her own, her former student, reborn out of circumstances Tissaia could not control and would not have wished upon her in any lifetime, means more to her than any other living soul on the whole of this vast Continent. Which says little, perhaps, when a woman has so few intimate personal connections, but she cares for Yennefer, yearns for her wholeness. She is not the sentimental type, never has been—would rather a person pick themselves up again and press onward, making a lesson of their past than be removed from it—but if she could take any of Yennefer’s pain… 

But such impossibilities do not bear thinking on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **trigger warning** for implied/referenced sexual assault.
> 
> I strongly recommend making the time to read the whole thing in one sitting... Unlike the other chapters, this is a single 5.5k scene, so there's not really a good stopping point in this chapter.
> 
> An absolute metric tonne of speculation about the nature of Chaos in show canon (again), particularly regarding conduit moments and favoured areas of magical expertise...

“If you can’t sense your magic now, I’m not sure why you have it at all.”

It’s the first thing Yennefer says after waking of a morning soon after the nightmare, her voice rough with disuse and her tone perhaps a little… grumpy. Days have begun to run together, even for Tissaia, who prefers to keep a tight rein on her perspective.

“I sense it,” Tissaia replies from her seat at the table, gazing evenly at Yennefer where she lies in bed. “But how do you come by such an idea?”

Yennefer rolls onto her side, raising an eyebrow as she stares in Tissaia's direction. “I seem to remember talking about this already.”

They _have_ spoken on it, but it does not change Tissaia's present view. “Humour me,” she drawls, tilting her head. “Or has academic curiosity become a crime? I wish to know what inspires such an observation at this particular moment—what _precisely_ has come to pass. From your point of view. Perhaps we shall co-author a book.” The last is a flippant joke, and she allows a false blitheness to enter her tone as she says it.

Yennefer remains quiet for a moment before grumbling something Tissaia can't hear; knowing Yennefer, it is probably a colourful curse. She levers herself upright. “Long version, or short?”

“All of it, if you please. I would not ask, otherwise. There is breakfast here, if you like.” She waves in the direction of a small tray of fruits and bread, conscious that the gesture has, over the past weeks, been sensed by Yennefer even if not seen—more conscious still that, if it is as she suspects, the gesture is of no use now.

Yennefer runs her tongue across her teeth, thoughtful. She adopts an overexaggerated clinical tone when she speaks. “I wake,” she begins then, leaning forward a little where she sits. “You are already up, of course, not in the bed beside me, but your breathing and a coughing spell tell me you are at the table. Three days ago, I would have sensed you there. Scientific enough?” She pushes herself to her feet, moving cautiously across to the table. Tissaia clears her throat to divert Yennefer from walking directly into her. At the sound, Yennefer pauses, stretching a hand out for the tabletop and following it about to the other side. Grimacing, she settles into the other chair, eyes fixed somewhere past Tissaia's body. “As you may have noticed, I've lost sight of you now.”

“Indeed.”

Although she keeps her voice even, Tissaia feels for her. There had been confidence in the sense of her presence, she's sure of it. A point of reference in the darkness. She reaches across the table to rearrange the breakfast contents to Yennefer's better convenience. A little space between each element, room to discover the offerings, and rediscover if desired.

“Which is to say, Chaos moves in and through you as it does any animal, any matter. But you do not channel it.”

“I reserve it,” Tissaia says quietly, watching as Yennefer gathers bread onto her plate, buttering it with the slow, learned efficiency she has nurtured since first she began to navigate her blindness.

Yennefer sets the knife carefully back on the edge of her plate, holding her slice of bread up in a mock salute. “With time, perhaps I might learn to discern that, too.”

Her tone is flippant at best, but Tissaia makes a thoughtful sound, nodding. “Attain enough understanding, enough clarity, in the workings of Chaos, and perhaps.” At Yennefer’s scoffing sound, Tissaia arches a brow. “Do not mock it, Yennefer. Chaos is Chaos, always, but we all manipulate it in our own way. Sometimes unintentionally. Often by the mere act of existing on this plane. It is its own, fickle breed of energy, and it dances with our wills. The mage harnesses it, draws it out, _bends_ it, and yet it still exists in all life.”

Tissaia pauses thoughtfully for a moment, watching as Yennefer eats.

“The elves claim that humans perverted Chaos,” she adds after a long moment, “and perhaps we did—but we have no sciences to allow for such an act. It is our will alone, and not only the will of mages. It is _will_ that allows these priestesses to perform their magics; will that allows the druids to draw power from nature. In theory, anyone can be _taught_ magic with enough time and practice.” This time, Yennefer is silent, but her lips twist into an odd, mocking smile and she shakes her head dismissively. Tissaia rolls her eyes. “It is true, of course, that for many, it would take much longer than their natural lives allow, but the point stands. Your very existence, mage or ordinary human, influences the energy in this room, whether you consciously manipulate the Chaos about you or not.”

Tissaia stands as she speaks, circling around to Yennefer, fingers tracing the tabletop as she moves closer. Stationing herself behind Yennefer’s chair, she lets her hands hover over Yennefer’s shoulders for a long moment before settling her hands there; Yennefer does not flinch.

“Every visceral, gut reaction you ever felt, which seemed unwarranted at the time but turned out to be true—Chaos, each. Blindfold me, surrounded by our sisters, and have one perform a spell; I will identify the caster to you. Only a few days ago, you mentioned that I can sense a girl’s magic come to fruition from hundreds of miles away. But why is that, Yennefer?”

Yennefer is still and silent beneath her hands; she shakes her head slightly, and Tissaia sighs wearily. There are few who understand even a little of the workings of Chaos; it is a complex beast, after all, one of which even Tissaia has little real, concrete comprehension. But she has made study of it in her long years, has an abstract understanding of its workings at the least, and she would have Yennefer understand. It is one of a few things she may still give to her.

“When Istredd sent you away from Tor Lara in that Elven portal, he did not account for the threads of Chaos that would follow you—the energy that is yours alone, and the lingering effect of your own will on the Chaos around you. If anything, he made you easier to find.”

“To find, and pay less than half the price of a pig for?” Yennefer asks suddenly, tersely, shifting in a clear effort to remove Tissaia’s hands from her person.

Tissaia withdraws. The words sting, catching her off her guard. It was not so long ago, though it feels like a lifetime, that Yennefer had as good as thanked her for the very event— _You saved me_ , she’d said at Sodden; and, later, _I owe you for pulling me out of that pigpen._ And so much more has happened between then and now: only a few mornings ago, Tissaia had kept vigil in the early hours as Yennefer slept fitfully against her breast; not long before that, Yennefer had comforted Tissaia as she _wept_ for the first time in—even Tissaia is uncertain. Yet she wonders if she ought not be surprised; it has always been so very like Yennefer to grow weary of a lesson and turn the tides. In a way, Tissaia understands that grapple for power. And it is telling, too; in some ways, she is still wounded, still has incredibly mixed feelings about her past. Tissaia does not know what to do with this truth, how to alleviate the suffering from a wound so old, a wound she inflicted. Maybe they are fated to live out the remainder of their lives with that dichotomy of hurt and care between them. She sighs heavily, resting just her fingertips on the back of Yennefer’s chair for support, for nearness.

“That man,” she says, allowing a little spite into her tone, “that—pitiful excuse for a father… he did not deserve a single mark.” He hadn’t. Still doesn’t. She hopes he is rotting in a shallow grave. But this is not about him. “But when I opened Aretuza’s coffers, Yennefer—that young girl I found sleeping with the pigs was worth each and every one of the _thousands_ of crowns poured into her education, her board.” It is an apology, in her own way. An apology, and an explanation.

“A pity that young girl did not know what she was worth to you, then, isn’t it?” Yennefer snaps, standing suddenly and spinning towards the door. She catches her hip on the back of the chair in the process, and in the moment when she reflexively grabs for the chair, wincing and muttering a curse under her breath, Tissaia reaches out to take her arm, attempting to block her from her flight with her own body.

“No. _No_ , Yennefer. We _will_ have this conversation,” she insists. It is not one Tissaia _wants_ to have, by any means, but if they are ever to come to terms with each other, if they might ever know some semblance of understanding, one for the other, then—well. Tissaia has had just enough of all of it, the endless back and forth and sniping, to be willing to try. To lay herself bare and _try again_ , as she had in the courtyard that span of days ago. Yennefer, after all, deserves… something. She does not know what will come of it. Peace. Clarity. The truth, laid out to do with what she will. Maybe it will break the tenuous threads that have bound them together these past weeks; maybe it will break down the walls that keep them apart. She does not know.

She does care enough to make the effort, whatever the outcome may be.

Yennefer hisses out a breath, shaking herself out of Tissaia’s hold, but she doesn’t move from her spot. Instead, she stands there, gazing off somewhere past Tissaia, a scowl pulling at her features. “ _Fine_ ,” she says after a long moment, closing her eyes, body rooted in place. “Why? Why was that young girl worth so much to you? Was it just her raw power? Is that it? Power you could put to your own use?”

“Power? Yes, of course. But that alone? And for _my_ uses? No. Never,” Tissaia says evenly, resisting the urge to touch again—difficult indeed, while they practically breathe the same air. “Her _potential_ was even greater—her potential to be a great mage in every way: in power, in scope, in politics. And more… She seemed the sort of person who could be trusted to act in the right ways, for the right reasons. There was a good-heartedness to her. A gentleness, beneath all that stubborn pride.”

Yennefer’s reaction to being called _good_ in any terms at all seems all-too visceral; Tissaia cannot fathom why. But surely as the day is long, Yennefer stiffens at the words, pulling back a fraction of an inch, lips twitching downwards. Tissaia can see her collecting herself, turning the frown into a snarl. “Gentleness?” she asks quietly, her tone slightly mocking. “No, Rectoress, I have never known that.” With that, she forges ahead, but Tissaia holds steady in her path, pressing her back.

“Yennefer, please.”

Yennefer stills at that, with her body barely touching Tissaia’s, her face tilted downward slightly. Her eyes are wide, her mouth drawn into a horrible imitation of a smile. She speaks again, and this time her voice is dangerously low. “I could snap you in half, you know. I have the power for it, now, and the will besides. And you… you’ve barely recovered anything. You are weak. Defenseless. _Useless_.”

She knows what she’s doing—knows that powerlessness and irrelevance are fates Tissaia cannot abide the thought of—speaks the words with such definite finality that the bite of them causes an almost physical pain. Tissaia breathes unsteadily, gathering herself.

“But you will not,” she says then, making her voice clear and certain. “So sit, please; let’s speak like adults.”

When Yennefer takes a single, slow step backwards, Tissaia is left with a sudden chill.

“Because you’ve been so forthcoming when I try to get you to talk,” Yennefer says, not moving any further once she steps that small distance away.

She’s right, of course. “No. No, neither of us are very good at saying the things that matter, are we?” Tissaia asks regretfully, shaking her head and allowing for a humourless breath of a laugh.

“Guess you taught me well, in that regard.”

“ _Hm._ ”

For another long moment, they form a silent tableau. Still as statues. Tissaia hardly dares breathe. Then, frown deepening, Yennefer lowers her gaze and reaches behind her, an automatic movement as she turns to search out the nearby chair again. Her hand finds it after a moment of grasping, and she hisses out a breath as she shifts to seat herself, face rising again to peer in Tissaia’s direction. 

“How much longer, Tissaia? How long before my eyes heal?”

“You are changing the subject.”

“I’m _frustrated_. I think I have a right to it.”

Tissaia works her jaw in a moment of irritation before relenting with a sigh. “Nenneke and I have spoken about your treatment. Made changes. Small ones, but in collaboration—”

“I already know that.”

Clenching her teeth, Tissaia resists the urge to bite back with a retort of her own. Instead, she circles around to face Yennefer and takes her chin roughly, angling it upward, ignoring the surge of guilt she feels at Yennefer’s noise of displeasure, the way she tenses at the unexpected touch. Yennefer glares _through_ Tissaia. And Tissaia, for the first time, notices something. Or perhaps allows herself to fully appreciate it.

“They are improving.”

A scoffing note of laughter greets the assertion. “Of course they are.” Yennefer takes Tissaia’s wrist in her hand, wrapping her fingers around it perhaps more tightly than is necessary. “Take your hands off me,” she says, low and dangerous, tossing Tissaia’s hand away in a movement that almost catches Tissaia in the chest.

How have they come to this again? It almost seems their lot, to be perpetually dancing around each other in spells of companionable understanding and fits of bitter enmity. Tissaia scowls as Yennefer lifts her hands to her face, closing her eyes and touching the lids in an absent gesture.

“I still can’t see.” Her voice is much quieter now.

Tissaia breathes, collecting herself once again. “No,” she murmurs, brushing the backs of her fingers against Yennefer’s wrist with a feather’s touch. “But look at me.”

Although begrudgingly, Yennefer drops her hands and lifts her face.

“If I may touch you?” She hopes her sedate tone functions as an apology for before. Yennefer frowns, then nods almost imperceptibly. “Here, below the eye,” Tissaia says then, quietly, speaking just before allowing her thumbs to grace the apples of Yennefer’s cheeks, tracing around her eyes to her temples as she has before. “All along. The blood vessels are regenerating. They are still superficial, inflamed, but the black has gone out of them again. Just at the edges, but it is something.”

Evidently, this observation is enough to draw Yennefer out—perhaps, even, to make her forget the earlier argument. “I’m sorry, did you say black?”

“Pardon?” Tissaia asks, confused by the question.

Yennefer’s expression is one of impatience, at best. “Exactly what have my eyes looked like all this time?”

“ _Exactly_ the way I would expect them to look if the balance between Chaos and your own body were upset,” she replies, tone even, almost flat. What else did Yennefer expect?

“Then _humour me_ , as I have humoured you.”

Sighing, rolling her eyes at the echo of her own earlier statement, Tissaia relents and cups Yennefer’s face a little more firmly in her palm, peering at her eyes. “It’s true that your eyes seem undamaged in form,” she says, adopting a clinical tone. “But your sclera and irises are black. The nearby blood vessels were damaged as well—surely you have noticed some numbness, at least in your eyelids?—black spiders out along the superficial ones around your eyes. Your treatment has been as much to preserve the skin tissue as to restore your vision. It has accomplished one of the tasks with great success.”

“Of course they’re not—” But Yennefer cuts herself off, grimacing as she moves to touch her eyelids again. Tissaia watches as she scratches a fingernail lightly across the flesh, sees the dawning realization on her face. “Perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to the feeling being half-gone,” Yennefer admits a little haltingly, frowning. “Still,” she says after a moment, tone warming again, “you never thought to tell me what they _looked_ like?”

At first, Tissaia isn’t sure how to interpret this. But, the earlier subject now clearly forgotten, at least for the moment, Yennefer adopts an imperious expression and wraps her fingers again around Tissaia’s wrist, this time without pushing her away.

“Tissaia de Vries,” she scolds, “the number of people I could have been terrifying these past weeks—”

“Why do you think the healers tending you were so unsettled at first, Yennefer?” Tissaia asks archly, frowning. “It certainly wasn’t your domineering presence, given the week you spent mostly confined to bed. Surely you have heard their whispers.”

“This boring lot has no secrets of interest,” Yennefer says dismissively. “Remember, I’ve been here before. But you. Stregobor was terrified of _babes_ born on a full moon. Think how frightening he’d have found me.”

“And of how dead I would have found you, once he’d a moment to gather his sycophants around him,” Tissaia scoffs, though her stomach still turns violently at the thought of that endless cycle of experimentation and murder—the scores of girls and young women. She allows no hint of this though; it is not the time. Regardless, they are not fit to stand in front of Stregobor now, or anyone else in the Brotherhood, for that matter. Even if the word is that Sodden did end the war. That the North is free. That Nilfgaard’s army is in ruins.

Tissaia sighs, pulling her own chair around to sit closer to Yennefer in the silence that follows. Yennefer, for her part, remains still, the distant look on her face slowly transforming into a more serious one again.

“I could hardly drag you into that kind of infighting,” Tissaia sighs out, flicking her fingers dismissively. “You are much too valuable for that.”

Yennefer arches a brow, lips tugging downward, and Tissaia watches her thoughtfully.

“Yennefer, that goodness I spoke of…” she begins quietly, unwilling to let the subject go. Unwilling to allow Yennefer to continue to think of herself as… however it is she sees herself. “That _gentleness_ —”

“—does not exist.” Yennefer says it so quickly, so emphatically, that Tissaia tenses a little.

“It does,” she insists, leaning forward, fingertips just brushing Yennefer's knee. “You cannot deny it, not after everything that we have been through _here_.” That is not even to mention Sodden, or before, at the Conclave. “To attempt to do so is pure foolishness.”

At the resounding silence that follows, Tissaia smiles tightly, patting Yennefer's knee. “The girl I dragged out of that pigpen… she did not lash out at her tormentors in her conduit moment; instead, she fled. She came to Aretuza, and she befriended the only girl in her class whose first use of magic had been entirely selfless. She was gentle with the classmate who could do nothing without her doll. And when I broke her…” Tissaia trails off, lowering her face for a long span, not daring to look into Yennefer’s eyes. Then, with a sigh, she tries again. “Something I have learned, Yennefer, is that after we are broken, when we put ourselves together again… The order of things becomes disarranged, but none of what we were before is truly gone. And so, the gentleness of which I speak… it was not lost. Buried, maybe. Forgotten, in favour of other traits—traits that I, admittedly, preferred to cultivate. Ambition. Strength. But we have been over this, I fear. I pushed too hard. I upset the balance.”

Yennefer, for her part, is silent as the grave.

Tissaia does not know if she should feel troubled or relieved.

Eventually, she chances a glance up at Yennefer’s face.Yennefer’s expression is carefully blank, only a faint knit of her brow hinting at what she might be thinking.

“I misled you,” Tissaia says then, softly, hesitating a little, “when we first arrived. That first day you left your bed, and came to find me.” She pauses for a moment. “I pondered when you might turn to some… unsavory act to further your own ends. But the truth is… the truth is, I trust that, when it counts, when it’s truly important, you will choose what is good. As you did in coming to Sodden.”

Yennefer swallows, blinking a few times as her gaze wanders. “That is a great deal of faith you put in me,” she observes at last, voice a little strained.

“Hm.” Tissaia watches her for a moment, then asks quietly: “Is it unwarranted?”

Her only response is a breath of mirthless laughter.

“I thought not,” Tissaia murmurs, straightening to rest her elbow on the table and watch Yennefer for a span. 

There is nothing but quiet between them.

It is Yennefer who breaks the silence long moments later. “You place great stock in conduit moments as proof of character, don't you?”

Tissaia makes a thoughtful sound, then smiles grimly. “In some ways. In the magic we gravitate towards thereafter as well. Think of Stregobor and Artorius—even Fringilla—and their illusion magic. The ability to beguile and distract is well-suited to their characters, is it not?”

Yennefer hums a note of half-hearted agreement while chewing absently, slowly, on a bite of apple.

“We speak to Chaos from the deepest parts of ourselves in our conduit moments, however. The magic we perform in them, the will we unleash upon the world, can be telling.”

Swallowing the bite of apple, Yennefer works her jaw for a moment as her gaze lingers in Tissaia’s direction. Then, with a pointed look, she asks: “So what was yours?”

The question is one Tissaia ought to have expected, but it takes her a little off guard nevertheless; perhaps she places too much faith, even now, in Yennefer’s typical disinterest in any life that isn’t hers. “It doesn't matter,” she answers lamely.

Although Tissaia’s voice is quiet, even, the reaction her words inspire is profound. “ _No_ ,” Yennefer growls, leaning forward, brows knit together. “ _You_ wanted to talk. _You_ wanted to maunder on about our relationships with Chaos and magic! You _don't_ get to refuse now!”

Tissaia recoils slightly, and immediately files the reaction away for later examination. She cannot afford such displays of weakness after leaving the temple; she is much too _safe_ here, with Yennefer alone to see—or not to see. The flare of guilt returns, swallowed down quickly.

Yennefer has a point. Tissaia heaves a sigh that leads to a coughing fit. She works her way through it while Yennefer takes another slow, contemplative bite of her apple. The sound of the meat breaking away from the core pierces the air.

Tissaia pinches the bridge of her nose, gritting her teeth. Yennefer is _right_ , and it isn’t fair to hide herself behind centuries of experience, when she knows all there is to know about Yennefer’s life before and at Aretuza. She _knows_ what made the younger woman. She knows.

Yennefer must sense something, because her gaze is fixed very near Tissaia’s face, a crease between her brows.

She forces herself to breathe evenly.

“My magic,” she says at last, lowering her hand into her lap and drawing herself upright. “What would you say my specialty is?”

“Healing, obviously.” She seems so certain.

“ _Obviously,_ ” Tissaia echoes, more contemplative than mocking. “No. Regrettably, my predilection for healing magic comes from centuries of learned application, not from any natural affinity for the craft.”

Yennefer has the grace to appear stumped. She keeps the apple close to her lips as she chews another bite, working her jaw as her head turns slightly away from Tissaia. “Healing is some of the only complex magic I have known you to perform outside of the classroom,” she admits eventually. “Even at Sodden, you—” Yennefer cuts herself off, scowling suddenly. For another moment, she is quiet, then, some conclusion or other forming in her mind she says abruptly: “I know you hate wild guesses, so why don’t you just—”

“ _Think._ ”

Yennefer bristles, but does as commanded.

After a moment, she speaks again, voice clipped. “I’ve seen you redirect lightning with ease. But lightning was the point of the lesson. You would have had the storm in mind. So not Aerokinesis.” A beat. “And besides, air is free. Light. You and that stick up your—”

“Do you want an answer, or not?” Tissaia snaps, not bothering to hide her own frustration. If Yennefer wants her to be open, she could at least make an effort to be less… _herself_. Less this _act_ she presents to the world.

Yennefer pauses in the middle of the sweeping gesture she was making, arching a brow as she lowers her arm, gazing evenly in Tissaia’s direction. “You’re making me work rather hard for one.”

“My dear, there is but one mage alive who is old enough to remember what brought me to Aretuza, and he is very likely to have forgotten the event centuries ago.” Tissaia manages to inject some quiet venom into her tone. “If you think such secrets flow easily, _think again_. You seek to harvest blood from a stone.”

“Why bother, then?” Yennefer demands, leaning back in her chair again, crossing one leg over the other. “Why should I try?”

Tissaia glares. “Because I am of a mind to share,” she snaps. “But first, you must cooperate.”

Another pregnant silence passes. Yennefer shifts in her seat, face contorted into an unreadable expression. “Fine,” she says at last. “At Sodden you did fuck-all. Which might make one question whether you really are the all-powerful Sorceress that your reputation suggests you are.” She says this with a slightly flippant air, but her voice levels soon, her expression grave. “But. It was _you,_ who redirected that second fireball. It’s fire, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Yennefer snorts as her lips twist into a feral, humourless smile, a laugh breaking from her. “Pyrokinesis was banned in the North; it doesn’t even exist on Aretuza’s curriculum, and yet _fire_ …” She trails off, the mirthless chuckle breaking out of her again.

Tissaia clasps her hands tightly together in her lap, eyeing Yennefer warily. “Properly harnessed, fire is a helpmate,” she says. “It warms hearths, lights the way—even in its destruction it clears dead land for new growth. But it is in fire’s nature to _consume_. After watching enough so-called masters of pyrokinesis succumb to their own chosen element, it was voted out of the curricula in the North, considered taboo.”

Yennefer sobers at the explanation, laughter dying, and for a long span after, she is very still. Tissaia can practically _feel_ her thinking—eyes Yennefer cautiously as her mouth twitches, lips parting to form words before closing again. Then, almost as if afraid to ask, she speaks: “And what destruction did your conduit moment wreak?”

 _Now_ she is asking the right questions. Tissaia swallows, not knowing what emotions she should be feeling. She watches Yennefer for a long moment, gathering herself. Slowly, the tangle of emotions unravels and transforms, taking the shape of something much older, ancient and festering.

“I imagine it was more tidal wave than ripple,” she responds at last, carefully tempering her emotions. She breathes deeply against the fear and rage deep in the recesses of her mind, grits her teeth against the nameless, faceless terror in her memory, the catalyst for everything that had come to pass. Such emotions will tear through her if she lets them—will rip through her being with the force of a hurricane. She resolves not to let them. “Dozens of men died. Two score, maybe. Some boys—not quite men, but old enough. In that moment, I wanted the whole world of men dead. Without knowing how, I destroyed a village full of them. They _burned_. Husbands and fathers. Widows and childless mothers left behind.”

Her voice is shaking. Yennefer is silent, watching.

And then, all of her tremulous, Yennefer whispers: “ _Tissaia_.”

Tissaia can feel her latching on to the very edge of her mind. She takes a steadying breath, mustering some control over her thoughts, attempting to shore up the delicate walls around her consciousness, but the effort only makes her dizzy. And at any rate, Yennefer has only gleaned what was already on the surface; she has not actively reached into her mind to _take_. Tissaia closes her eyes, pressing down sensations that Yennefer is sure to feel. The too-large hands, hard with calluses and fierce in their grip; the smell of cheap, stale ale; the hollow sound of a skull striking a barn wall, the plea cracking around a sob in her own throat. The flood of emotions, mixed terror and wrath vying for control of her body and mind.

Yennefer slips out of her seat and onto the floor. Tissaia takes another deep breath and ploughs on, stubbornly resisting the nausea that coils in her belly. 

“As you saved me at Sodden, most of the women and children survived unscathed. You sacrificed your sight; I was burned beyond recognition.” She is shaking. She tenses as Yennefer moves alongside her on her knees, her fingers splaying, covering Tissaia’s clasped hands. “Like you, I was recreated during my time on Thanned,” she continues purposefully. “And like you I was pure Chaos for a great while.”

“Tissaia.”

Chaos ripples on her skin, tingling her fingertips, and Tissaia squeezes her eyes tightly shut at the old, familiar feeling of control slipping out of her grasp. Even after all these years, centuries, she knows what it is. And Yennefer must sense it too, for her thumb glides down Tissaia’s wrist and into the well of her palm; Tissaia looses her own clasped hands, allows Yennefer to cover the hand that rests in her lap as she lifts her free hand to bury her fingers in Yennefer's hair.

Yennefer leans in, tilts her forehead against Tissaia's ribs, and it is enough impetus to finally settle her breathing. 

“The point to all this,” Tissaia manages to say, ignoring the disapproving sound Yennefer makes, “is that I know first-hand what it is like to be unmade and remade. I know that the pieces are still there, because I know how hard I have worked, to no avail, to destroy parts of myself that were buried hundreds of years ago. The same truths remain; the same inclinations.”

 _‘What more must I say to you?’_ she hears herself ask in the silence that follows. _‘What is it you need from me—?’_ A question unfinished and unanswered. Questions that should have been telling, but so obviously were not. Perhaps it says as much about Tissaia as it does about Yennefer, that she cannot seem to discern what Tissaia has feared is _too_ obvious; perhaps she does not perceive Tissaia as capable of such attachments. (The truth is quite the opposite, of course: Tissaia may have no difficulty in keeping even those closest to her at arms’ length, but she feels a deep sense of responsibility, protectiveness, _possessiveness_ for each sorceress who passes through her care, and for others besides.)

Regardless of the reason, Tissaia knows now that _showing_ is not enough for Yennefer—never will be, blessed, blind fool of a girl that she is. That for all that she is accustomed to doublespeak and lies in the political sphere, to unraveling or piecing together the truth of a thing in the day to day, she is quite oblivious to the very real nature of Tissaia’s care. That she will remain oblivious of her value as _Yennefer_ , and nothing more, until she is told: straightforwardly, without evasion or obfuscation.

“I am sorry you did not know your worth then,” Tissaia murmurs. She cards her fingers through Yennefer’s sleep-tangled hair, working carefully at one small knot, then another, and pursing her lips as Yennefer’s fingers tighten around her own. “That potential, though… That girl’s value… It was a shadow. It was nothing, compared to—” She pauses, tries again. “You are worth more to me _now_ than—”

But it is impossible to quantify. Tissaia swallows against the knot in her throat, frustrated by her inability to speak clearly, to voice what it is she feels. She doesn't know _what_ she feels. Warmth. Fondness. She curls her fingers, brushing her knuckles against Yennefer’s scalp. When she speaks again, it is almost a whisper.

“If what you desire is to be wanted, loved, for who you are—for something more than your power, or your beauty, or…” Tissaia trails off as Yennefer withdraws, tilting her chin up as if to look at Tissaia, eyes black and searching and somehow full. Tissaia sighs, moving to cup Yennefer’s cheek. “Know only that you are precious to me, Yennefer. Beyond precious.”

It must suffice, because without a word, Yennefer lowers herself to her haunches, rests her brow against Tissaia’s thigh, and releases a single, quiet sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to @thinkbucket for giving this chapter a beta for me! And ofc batard_loaf for her eternal encouragement and comments on sections that needed more than two sets of eyes. EVER WITH ME IN SPIRIT EVEN WHEN DROWNING IN HER OWN FIC. LOVE U BABES.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The roller-coaster continues. One day our girls will get off the ride. Hopefully without breaking any limbs...

Yennefer weeps.

It’s beyond pitiful and horrifically self-indulgent, she knows, but once the first sob breaks out of her, there’s little stopping it. Not when Tissaia’s hand rests just there, heavy against the back of her neck, fingers moving, each slight tug at the fine hair at her nape sending shivers down her spine. Not when Tissaia closes her hand around Yennefer’s own, squeezing gently when Yennefer busses her thumb against Tissaia’s palm. Not when she’s been handed a thing she has been aching for since she was a child.

By the time she is finally able to quell her tears, Yennefer’s knees are aching and her head throbs. She feels wrung out and raw. She moves off her heels and onto the floor; Tissaia shifts in reply, freeing her hand from Yennefer’s and rising. A strangled noise catches in her throat, but she pulls away instinctively: it’s too much, of course it is—she’s being ridiculous, and far be it from Tissaia to suffer such behavior for long—why should she? Yennefer wouldn’t. The chair legs scrape against the floor. She winces. She is a fool.

The moment of uncertainty allows her to find some measure of control; she distances herself, scudding tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand. But before she has regained her composure, before she has quite cleared the tears from her other eye, Tissaia is on the ground beside her, their legs touching, her hands on Yennefer’s arm, her shoulder. Yennefer stills, resists the subtle tug. Because she _is_ a fool—here, on the floor, sobbing over—over what? She had all but given up on being _wanted_ until Geralt came along with his ridiculous fucking wish; _years_ she’d spent softening, because of him, _for_ him, against her better judgment, only to find a sense of fulfilment she’d never expected shattered on the ground with the realisation that she’d been played by a witcher and a djinn. It’s ridiculous, and she should know better, and none of it should matter. None of it should matter, and didn’t Tissaia just reveal, even re-live, a defining and catastrophic moment in her own life? Yennefer has never been a sympathetic person, much less a comforter—but isn’t it Tissaia who deserves comfort right now? The shadow of Tissaia’s memory washes over her again, little more than a catalogue of vague sensations, but clear enough in implication.

But a quiet “ _Come,_ ” and the steady, unyielding touch of her hands draws Yennefer in despite her reservations. She gravitates towards Tissaia, following her lead, settles with her back bent and her head nestled against Tissaia’s shoulder. It’s not the most comfortable of positions, but she sighs, the warmth of her breath pooling against Tissaia’s neck.

“Tissaia,” she mumbles, fingers tangling in her garments, reaching out with her mind. Tissaia’s thoughts are restrained now, however—perhaps even shielded. She dances along the edges of Tissaia’s consciousness, not seeking entry, but feeling out her walls. Although subdued, locked up tight, she is not like still water—more like a rushing river after a deluge. Not the rapids, but the unobstructed current. Predictable, steady, perhaps even appearing calm from a distance, but deep and deadly to the unwary.

Yennefer’s earlier, reactionary impulse to dig just a little deeper had been met with a sudden wall, haphazard and flimsy though it had been, and she had not dared attempt to cross it. Tissaia seems untroubled by this more cautious exploration, an arm wrapped around Yennefer’s shoulders, fingertips tracing the hem of her gown. Now she understands fully: that night in Tor Lara, decades ago, when she had begun to feel a whisper of kinship with Tissaia, the suggestion that she, too, was consumed by emotions had not been a lie. Manipulation, maybe (Yennefer is still uncertain where Tissaia’s machinations begin and end), but never a lie: Tissaia may be adept at keeping her emotions dammed up, but they _exist_ , and they are poised to devour.

So Yennefer skirts the riverbanks, observing the waters from a distance, watching and listening for its distant sounds.

As if in response, Tissaia hums a quiet note, thumb traversing the shell of Yennefer’s ear. “My dear heart,” she whispers, the weight of a thousand lifetimes carried across the syllables, her lips just brushing Yennefer's scalp. 

It awakens something within her: a deep thirst, an empty longing, a quiet surrender. She unfists the hand resting near Tissaia's shoulder, pressing away slightly to turn her face and place a soft kiss into Tissaia's palm. Tissaia makes a quiet noise in the back of her throat, almost too quiet to hear, far too quiet to interpret. Yennefer lifts her face, close enough that her nose bumps Tissaia's jaw, cheek, nose.

At the moment, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to kiss her.

But without a word, without any hint of what she might be thinking, Tissaia rebuffs the attempt before Yennefer's lips have quite found her own, dragging Yennefer close again, until her head is cradled fiercely in the crook of Tissaia's neck. She does not understand the denial, but neither does she have the wherewithal to resist; all she can do is succumb. Squeezing her eyes shut, she inhales a shaking breath, a hand clasped behind Tissaia's neck, the other arm wrapping tightly around her waist.

Though her chest aches with a weight she cannot name, no more tears come.

* * *

Over the next few days, Tissaia begins to call upon her Chaos here and there—not actively using the magic, but summoning it, exerting her will upon it.

She does this for herself, of course—testing the limits of her magic against the dimeritium in her blood—but although she does not say as much, it is for Yennefer too. And so, Yennefer is attentive, immersing herself in Tissaia’s small uses of Chaos, learning the feel of it, becoming familiar with the way Tissaia’s very particular brand of magic moves against her senses—the way it feels and tastes and smells in comparison to the Chaos in the hearth, or in the air, or within her own body.

Although Tissaia shows no sign of frustration, Yennefer can tell she is struggling with it, and understands now why she refused to use it at first. It is not unlike watching a candle flicker on a gusty evening: her flame winks out, or leaps high and ravenously devours the wick. Either way, her ability to control her Chaos is unreliable. Three weeks of treatments for the dimeritium, and it continues to interfere; the idea that the damage might be permanent troubles Yennefer. Troubles Tissaia, too, if the tremulous energy surrounding her says anything.

To distract herself from such thoughts, she turns her focus to the magic of the priestesses. They wield it differently than sorceresses do, more subtly and with less command; Yennefer has never been much of an academic for the sake of academia, but the comparison is fascinating. As they treat her eyes, murmuring quiet chants while applying the poultices, Yennefer lets herself become familiar with the way Chaos moves at the command of _faith_. (She supposes belief in a god is all well and good, if it gets the job done.) She has a new appreciation for their efforts now, at any rate: for the reeking thrice daily applications of herbs that she had doubted the efficacy of until very recently. She may be blind yet, but she is not a fool; Tissaia did not need to expound upon the idea of _preserving skin tissue_. The weight of the damage done seems much greater now, and of what she owes the women of the temple, Nenneke in particular, greater still.

Necrosis, after all, is hardly a good look on a sorceress, she thinks wryly.

(If she finds herself touching her face more often now, fingers absently tracing across damaged eyelids or the hollow beneath her eye, Tissaia is kind enough not to remark on it.)

* * *

When they first arrived at the temple, neither Yennefer nor Tissaia had slept much, frequently waking in bouts of pain or asthmatic spells. At that time, acolytes of the temple had been in and out of the room at all hours; now, the sorceresses are largely left in privacy, and they have both made significant recovery, but sleep seems no easier to find. Yennefer's injury is healed but her nightmares are frequent, and although Tissaia's episodes are much less common, Yennefer gets the impression she sleeps even less than Yennefer does. Often, she wakes from a nightmare with Tissaia's cool hand on her arm. Other times, when she wakes, she can hear Tissaia's breathing and knows she is lying awake in her own bed. Once in a while, Tissaia seems afflicted by a nightmare as well. And on two occasions, Yennefer has found herself in Tissaia’s bed in the wake of one of her asthma attacks, curled around her with her nose buried in her hair for reasons she can’t quite explain and, frankly, fears examining.

Tonight, she lies awake as Tissaia makes a few quiet noises—barely audible cries as she thrashes once and then gasps awake, panting. Yennefer listens as she settles, coughing feebly. Feels the subtle shift in Chaos beside her, a rippling that is beginning to feel like _Tissaia_.

She rises.

Lowering herself to the edge of Tissaia's bed, she reaches out, finds Tissaia's arm. She's lying very close to this side of the bed—so close Yennefer can feel the swell of Tissaia’s hip against her own. “Budge over.” The beds aren't large to begin with, certainly not large enough to justify a habit of sharing, but she doesn't care.

Tonight, she wants Tissaia's nearness.

Tissaia makes a questioning noise as Yennefer's knuckles blindly trace along her forearm. She's still and quiet for a moment before asking: “What are you doing?”

“Just move over.” It's not an answer, but that seems to be a pattern with them, and really, Yennefer feels no need to elaborate. Her aim is clear; what more does Tissaia want from her? Some manufactured excuse in lieu of the fever or asthmatic episodes that have brought her here before?

Tissaia heaves a heavy sigh, hesitates; an unproductive cough chases the breath. The Chaos around them ripples and then stills. She shifts, making room for Yennefer to curl alongside her in the bed.

Once settled, Yennefer searches out Tissaia's arm again, pushing the sleeve of her gown up past her elbow, fingers brushing the soft skin there. It seems an intimate thing to do, more intimate still in that Tissaia, who rarely shows more than a sparse glimpse of skin, allows it without comment or complaint. A fluttering stirs in her belly. “What were you dreaming about?”

“Nothing,” Tissaia murmurs, too quickly.

Yennefer curls her fingers, brushes her knuckles against Tissaia’s inner elbow. “Tell me.”

A beat. Tissaia's head shifts on the pillow; Yennefer thinks she must be facing her now. “Dimeritium.”

It seems like a logical thing to be dreaming about, Yennefer supposes. In the same way that it is logical for her to dream about fire and death. She sighs, slides her hand down. Clasps it gently over Tissaia's forearm. The stirring of birds moves from her belly to her chest. It’s absurd. She wants more.

“What do you usually dream about?” she wonders aloud. She has never thought to wonder about how others dream. She rarely remembers her own.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are they logical, reflections of the day to day, or wild and fantastical?” she asks in a dramatic undertone as she releases Tissaia’s arm, lifting her hand to gesture broadly into the room. “Are they good dreams, or bad? Or do you remember them at all?”

“Hm.” For a long moment, the vague acknowledgement is her only answer. “Some of them feature Stregobor being set aflame,” Tissaia finally replies in a voice that lilts a little too much.

Still, Yennefer chuckles, lowering her hand and easily finding Tissaia’s arm again.

“I could be convinced to set his robes on fire for your amusement.”

Tissaia snorts caustically. “Would I be convincing you, or giving you permission?” 

Yennefer affects a haughty demeanour, sniffs in reply. “Semantics.”

“Hmph,” Tissaia replies, but there's a barely-suppressed chuckle behind the sound. After a moment, she adds: “I dream, rather unsurprisingly, about lessons, and politics, and many other unimaginative things.”

“Boring,” Yennefer complains with a sigh.

“A fair summation.”

Yennefer is surprised when Tissaia doesn't ask the same question in return; they are usually embroiled in a desperate give and take. Perhaps she suspects she knows the answer; maybe she doesn't care. Yennefer mulls this over for a span frowning slightly in thought.

The bed shifts as Tissaia moves onto her side to face Yennefer. Instead of withdrawing her hand, Yennefer leaves it there, letting her knuckles rest against Tissaia's ribs.

“Are you alright?” Tissaia asks softly, fingertips brushing Yennefer's hand, then following a familiar path up her arm—a feather-light ghost of a touch; an unspoken communication; an anchoring point of contact—across her shoulder, up to her jaw. Tissaia strokes down from her temple with one fingertip and Yennefer closes her eyes, breathing deeply.

“Mm,” she replies at last, hardly an answer, but Tissaia doesn't seem to mind. She runs her thumb underneath the line of Yennefer's brow, and Yennefer knows now that she is assessing her progress, familiarizing herself with precisely how far Yennefer's healing has come as of this moment. She dissolves into the touch, and, not for the first time, finds herself wanting more. Wanting Tissaia's body pressed against her own, wanting to rediscover the way she moves when her breath catches in the midst of a kiss—the curve of her mouth, the warmth of her breath.

She has not forgotten Tissaia’s recent rebuff, of course; it's not often she's denied any such advance, not since her Initiation, since the Enchantment that gave much, but took much more. She counts that as an outlier, however; the moment had been… she has no language for it, knows only that, though it was Tissaia who revealed something of herself, Yennefer felt equally bare, in a strange and new and terrifying way.

The fluttering wings escape her body and stretch out into the Chaos surrounding them when Tissaia withdraws.

An involuntary noise of displeasure escapes her. An imprudent hand trails up and across Tissaia’s breast; her fingers curl again at the back of Tissaia’s neck, and then, quite without thinking, she leans forward and meets the edge of Tissaia’s mouth in a crooked kiss. Tissaia does not move, doesn’t breathe, so she corrects the angle, shifting towards the other woman just a little to press another soft kiss to Tissaia’s lower lip. 

“Yennefer.”

Tissaia’s voice is low, breaks a little. Yennefer nudges her nose against Tissaia’s. She wants the hungry kiss of the courtyard, the returned warmth of Sodden; but before their lips meet again, before Yennefer can claim Tissaia’s mouth, Tissaia draws back, hand cupping Yennefer’s face, thumb on her lips.

“ _Yennefer_.”

Frustrated, confused, _wanting_ , Yennefer _whines_ , unable to keep the sound from escaping. “ _Tissaia,_ ” she replies, eyes flicking open, aimlessly, hopelessly seeking out the other woman’s face. If she will not speak her mind, surely her expression betrays _something_ of what she feels, of whatever it is that makes her withdraw, denying a second kiss in a brief span of days.

“What is it?” Yennefer asks after a too-long silence, searching the darkness to no avail.

“Nothing.”

Yennefer frowns at the obvious lie. She can feel the discomfort, the impulsive dismissal rooted in the energy between them. “Then kiss me,” she can’t resist challenging, tone and expression a sharp contrast to the delicate brush of her thumb across Tissaia’s jaw.

The silence that greets her is long and unsettling. She feels heavy, weighed down. Finds herself shifting again, inching closer, first hips then shoulders, until she can feel the heat of Tissaia's body and the weight of her breath when she sighs. A hand lands on Yennefer's chest suddenly, fingers splayed across her collarbone, palm pressing into her sternum.

When Tissaia speaks, it's quietly, and uncharacteristically halting. “I fear... you may be searching for something I cannot give you.”

Although spoken soft and slow, the words crack like lightning. She feels struck.

She cannot pinpoint or define the emotions the words dredge up, but a tight knot forms in her belly and she lies there for a long span, flush with heat, pulse pounding in her ears. She almost doesn't hear Tissaia speak her name—barely a whisper. She tenses when she does, staring into the space ahead as Tissaia's hand rests with steady pressure against her chest. She shifts forward, unable to resist leaning into the pressure, pushing back against this new obstacle; the heel of Tissaia’s hand digs into her breastbone, keeping her in place.

She breathes out through her teeth, and finds herself trembling. Grasping at Tissaia’s arm, fingers tangling in her sleeve, she clenches her jaw, swallowing down the rising bile.

“You… _fear_ ,” she grinds out at last, giving into the pressure against her chest but craning her neck, instinctively moving further into Tissaia’s space, all challenge and anger and heat. “Here’s what I fear: that every word you speak is a lie, even now.”

“Yennefer!” There’s a warning edge to her voice that Yennefer barrels through with a sneer.

“Have you ever _actually_ cared, even a little?” she demands. _Of course she cared, still cares,_ part of her reasons as she moves her hand, wrapping her fingers tight around Tissaia’s wrist, the pulse quick beneath her fingertips. She has shown concern that could only be genuine, but Yennefer finds herself wondering now if it was ever more than guilt, or ego, or something else unnameable.

“I did _not_ say that I do not _care_ for you, Yennefer,” Tissaia replies in a fierce undertone.

As Tissaia pulls back against the grip on her arm, Yennefer grits her teeth, nostrils flaring. At length, the impending silence daggers between them, she releases Tissaia’s wrist with a snarled: “ _Fuck_ you.” For stringing Yennefer along, for making her think even for a moment that any of it was about Yennefer, just Yennefer. Fuck her.

She rolls away, Chaos tingling at her fingertips, rippling in the air around them. 

“I _do_ care for you,” Tissaia insists. Fingers graze against her back as Yennefer pushes herself up out of the bed.

“Of course you do,” Yennefer spits mockingly. 

“Don't be obtuse, child!” Tissaia hisses from behind her.

 _Child._ Yennefer wheels around, drawing herself up to full height, static pricking her skin. She will bear such abuses from Nenneke, but from Tissaia? No, Tissaia of all people knows the things she has seen and done, the fate that has been levied upon her, the lifetimes she has lived. “Is that what you see when you look at me? A child?”

“Lower your _voice_ , Yennefer; and stop being petulant and _listen._ ”

Yennefer barks a laugh at that, shaking her head as she lifts her hands slightly, fingers curled into loose fists. She inhales, exhales, steels herself against the rampant Chaos in her veins. “What more could you possibly have to say?”

For a moment, there's silence. Then, very quietly from below her comes Tissaia's voice. “You are still completely out of control, aren't you?” 

It’s more observation than question. If Yennefer didn't know better, she might think of her tone as _mournful_.

“Where will you go?”

Yennefer pauses in her movements, coming back to herself and realising almost belatedly that she is all but poised to create a portal. To where, she does not know; there's not a place in this world she knows the way she knows the temple now, nowhere she could go and feel confident in, well, anything; _that_ truth comes crashing down like a tidal wave: she is more than capable of finding her way here in the temple, but outside of it? Outside of it, she would be alone without her vision, and she still needs time to heal. And there’s no one to go to, either: Geralt has proved thoroughly disappointing; there are great, gaping chasms between herself and most of the other Aretuzan mages; Istredd would take her in out of pity, she's sure, but she does not want pity and knows nothing of his whereabouts or situation since Nilfgaard’s invasion. In short, it is a terrible idea, and she heaves a breath, scolding herself silently for the impulse.

“Nowhere, obviously,” she says as she lowers her hands. She feels a little steadier again, a little less brash. A little. “Away from you.” She breathes, navigates her way carefully from between the beds. There is no storming away, no dramatic exit to be had, but Tissaia is appropriately quiet, and makes no apparent move to follow.

She wanders the quiet halls for a while, waving off the unlucky woman tasked with the nighttime watch with a scowl when she attempts to come to Yennefer’s aid. She eventually finds herself in the library, not because it is of any particular interest to her but because it is quiet and there are a few comfortable chairs arranged throughout the room. It’s not a particularly impressive library from what she can tell, but at the least, the air is still. The chairs are always in slightly different places though, where novices have arranged and rearranged, and she's caught her hip and leg on more than one piece of furniture before she finds the small armchair she wants by the hearth; the injuries, however small, do nothing to settle her mood. She curls into the chair, knees bent up to her chest, and closes her eyes, focusing on the Chaos inside her; it takes several long minutes of patient struggle and concentration before she can quell her magic enough to reach out with her mind to give the fire a little vigour. The warmth is comforting; she settles, lips drawn into a tight line.

She has lived most of her life in a shadowy place little better than the darkness of her youth, and she feels herself slipping into it again now. It is an unpleasant surprise, because truth be told, she had barely realised she had left it behind. The temple is not always a quiet place, and certainly not a happy one, but the stillness of her surroundings here, the relative peace she has come to feel in Tissaia's company, and that of the priestesses and students, is a stark counterpoint to Sodden and the looming shadow of the future alike—and indeed, to most of her life before, manipulating pawns for the glory of senseless kings and peddling spells to distrustful villagers. Oh, the weeks here have not been _easy_ by any means—recovery has been arduous, and treatment dull, and the tenuous relationships they have built have been punctuated by fits of discord and irritation, but by and large… by and large, Yennefer realises quite belatedly, the temple has been a reprieve. 

She feels, quite suddenly, very small and terribly alone.

It’s not something she has allowed herself to feel since she was young, since the first few months at Aretuza, though it was a constant companion in the pigpen. She’d been friendless and helpless then; she has her power now, but while no longer a weak, bent girl, her blindness and her relative inability to navigate it coupled with Tissaia’s rejection thrust her back into feelings long gone.

She’s struggled all her life to keep up, to be good enough, to either earn or take by force even a vague shadow of regard—with the thought of one day turning the tables and overshadowing her mentor admittedly ever at the back of her mind; Tissaia, after all, has always seemed the picture of success. But here, she has been complacent and foolish; here, she has opened herself up, only to find that once again, it is not worth the risk. She had known better than to make herself in any way vulnerable for Geralt, and had suffered the consequences. And here, in the temple, Tissaia has been all touch and warmth, and for a brief span of days Yennefer had let herself believe that maybe neither of them had to overshadow the other; that maybe, just maybe, she could live in Tissaia’s light.

After Sodden, after the courtyard… how can that warmth have been anything other than an invitation?

Discovering that Tissaia does not want her after all leaves her winded and confused. It had seemed real; she had done her best to follow Tissaia’s cues. She’d been aggressive at times, yes, but she’d joined the dance. She knows Tissaia to be a great manipulator of her students—it is how she gets results, no matter the consequences; she’d been foolish enough to think that the manipulation stopped there, that Tissaia considered her enough of a peer to be straightforward.

She’s been wrong, clearly.

She has Tissaia to thank for the anger that bubbles up in response to the tears that spark in her eyes. Tissaia, for seeking out a spark, for feeding it, for stoking it into a bright flame. Before Aretuza, it had never really occurred to her to _fight_ those feelings of helplessness and isolation; she had wallowed in them, accepted them as truth. Tissaia had taught her to fight back; and Tissaia, whether intentionally or not, had taught her that bared and gnashing teeth were the most useful recourse to such feelings.

But anger doesn’t feel _right_ , and neither does this dichotomy—the old certainty that Tissaia cares for nothing but herself and her confounded institution against the newfound conviction that her behavior here has been genuine. She wants to rail and rage and destroy something. She wants to be held. The fire flares in the hearth, a rush of heat warming her arm, and she clenches her fists, forcing herself to breathe, to control her Chaos, to tame the licking flames.

She wants, _yearns_ , to be, for just a moment in this life, anyone but herself. Someone not thrown into the jaws of the world with such an expectation for perfection that even perfection itself is worthy of nothing.

She doesn't hear Tissaia when she enters the room, but she feels her—the flicker in Chaos, the warmth that reminds her, irritatingly, of a good brandy. The faint metallic smell, the one she might be imagining, as she had imagined Istredd’s freshly-baked bread the very first time she had sensed the thoughts in someone else’s mind; the imagining makes it no less real.

She grimaces into her knees, loosening her fists; her palms sting where her nails dug into the flesh. She steadies her breath.

“It seems I can sense you after all,” she says after a span of silence, voice lilting glibly, though she does not feel it. “A shame you could not bear to leave me be, even for a little while.”

“It's been hours, Yennefer,” Tissaia replies quietly from the direction of the doorway.

Yennefer scowls; she can't have been here that long, can she?

“It's dawn. Go back to the room. Rest; it will be time for your treatment soon. I'll leave you be.”

It is not a command, but an invitation. And it is gentle, maybe even sad.

Yennefer's pulse quickens and her eyes burn. How Tissaia can behave this way, even now, is a mystery. “ _Stop._ Stop acting like you give a shit!” For once, she finds herself largely at a loss for words. She cannot summon an appropriately scathing dismissal; no bitter insult comes to mind, only confused desperation. “Just… _just stop_ ,” she says instead, and the anger flares up again, higher and faster, at herself, at her own almost-plea, at the weakness it betrays. The heat of the fire against her side warns her that she is losing herself to it. She wonders if that display at Sodden awakened something inside of her, some predilection towards the greedy, consuming nature of fire—or if perhaps the act stoked a flame that was always there.

“ _Control_ your Chaos, Yennefer,” Tissaia warns, voice still so soft, but with bitingly-precise consonants. 

Yennefer grinds her teeth, exhales on a breath. Inhales the pure, primal energy of the fire. The crackling warmth of the hearth goes cold and silent as she claims the Chaos for her own. It’s foolish, petty, absurd. And while it is not enough unbridled Chaos to do any damage, it is more than enough to earn Tissaia’s silent disapproval.

“It’s controlled,” she declares, waving her fingers through the air with a glib smile on her face. It’s a stupid thing to say, but for the first time since Sodden she feels _full_.

Tissaia snorts caustically. “You play a dangerous game.” Her words bite, but they do not feel angry. Strange.

“It’s a hearth fire,” she snaps back, then sighs, closing her eyes. “Or do you begrudge me a feeling of—” of what? she wonders at herself, breathing in, curling her fingers shut. Normalcy? That feeling of _fullness_ , of brimming over with magic, so often taken for granted over the years, decades? No more. She had not known how empty she felt until now.

“You do not need another lecture on the nature of fire,” Tissaia observes on a sigh, and then adds very quietly: “I only ask that you not become complacent. Guard yourself: you are enough of an agent of Chaos without its temptations.”

Yennefer scoffs softly, but does not reply.

The silence between them grows. 

“Perhaps it's time we consider parting ways,” Tissaia murmurs after a span, and now there’s something new behind her voice, in the stirrings of Chaos. Regret? Is she capable of such a feeling? Perhaps Yennefer misjudges; she has never been good with real emotion, least of all with the sharing of it. She doubts Tissaia has either.

Still, the pronouncement is unexpected; Yennefer glances up in Tissaia’s direction. She laughs darkly. “Oh?”

Tissaia huffs out a breath. “Don't be daft, Yennefer. Send me to Aretuza. No one will be the wiser about who created the portal.”

Snorting, Yennefer splays her fingers, allowing the energy to pool in her hands almost absent-mindedly, eyes fixed ahead, palms turned up. “And what of you? Your treatment? What happens when they discover you have no power?” she wonders aloud.

“That is clearly none of your concern.”

“Oh, _shut up_ ,” Yennefer snarls, clenching her fists again and blowing out a breath. “The great Tissaia de Vries, Archmage, Rectoress of Aretuza, frigid bitch with a savior complex. Couldn't cast a defensive spell to save her life—can barely even breathe half the time—wants to return in faith to Stregobor and his cronies. Never mind, as you’ve so astutely pointed out, that they were perfectly content with murdering babes, so long as they were girls born under a full moon!” 

She wants very badly to care less. To want less. To _need_ less. To not sit here and turn Tissaia’s words around and throw them in her face out of desperation and a sense of protectiveness she cannot explain. Why should Tissaia be anything to her? If Tissaia cares for her school, and for the Continent, but not one iota for Yennefer—or anyone else, for that matter—then what's the point? 

And that's the rub, isn't it? Yennefer isn't afraid to admit she's selfish, and she's never once been ashamed of it; she has done what she had to do to survive. But while she's always focused on herself and, occasionally, on people close to her, Tissaia is so embroiled in the grand mechanisms of world politics, in her ideals regarding the so-called _greater good_ , Yennefer wonders if she even remembers that there are _people_ living and breathing in it, and that those people are not cogs in a machine. With Sodden, Yennefer had given in—had dropped her own whims to help Tissaia help the Continent. They'll never be thanked for it, but she'd done it anyway, because Tissaia had asked—no, _begged_. Because for a moment, Tissaia had needed her, and stupid as she is, she’d let that be enough.

She's so tired of giving a fuck about Tissaia. Tired of wanting her, of needing her, of seeing her even when she sleeps.

But she does, and she finds herself making more excuses: “It’s too far; it would take two portals.”

Tissaia’s breath gusts, and Yennefer can feel the tension bleeding off of her; her walls are weak. “Then come with me through the first, send me to Aretuza, and return here. Come, Yennefer, you clearly have the ability!”

“Stop. I’ll not send you into that viper pit alone.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Tissaia snaps, something unsettled in her energy.

Yennefer makes a dismissive noise. “Just because you don’t give a shit about me d—” _Doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,_ her runaway mouth wants to say. She stops herself with a click of her teeth, turning her face towards the empty hearth. No, she won’t admit that, certainly not now. Tissaia doesn’t deserve it, and admitting it aloud will only hurt.

“Oh, Yennefer.” Tissaia’s feet are silent on the stone floor, and there’s a quiet intensity in her voice. When she speaks again, she’s standing directly over Yennefer, at her side. “If I did not care for you, I would have taken you to my bedroll at Sodden.”

The words are a surprise, her tone, almost warning, more so, but Yennefer’s lips pull into a disbelieving smirk. “Now that seems unlikely,” she drawls, lifting her face towards Tissaia. “It would have been awfully public. Not that the idea of—”

“You take my meaning, Yennefer,” Tissaia growls.

Yennefer wonders if she means to inspire the tug in Yennefer’s belly, the warm rush of blood through her veins. This is absurd.

“What I fail to understand is why you would think that my refusing to _kiss_ you should mean I do not care.” Tissaia rattles these words out quickly, sharp like daggers.

Yennefer raises a brow at the sudden change in tone, lowering her face towards her knees again. This is beyond absurd; this is… She doesn’t know what it is, and she cannot bring herself to unfold herself from the chair to escape it.

After a moment of silence, Tissaia sighs quietly above her; Yennefer scowls.

“ _Failed_ to understand, I should say,” she corrects, deflated, somber. “I believe I do, now.”

Oh, does she? “Hmph.”

Tissaia continues, ignoring the disapproving grunt. “You do know, Yennefer, that there are many loves in this world? That not all involve sex? That none should _require_ it?”

Something inside Yennefer clenches at the assertion. “And what do you know of love?” she demands, flinching away when Tissaia’s hand shifts the hair by her face slightly.

Tissaia withdraws with another, deeper sigh. “Very little, it seems,” she confesses, voice little more than a whisper now. “But I know it comes in many forms. Love for parents or for children, different loves for different friends—perhaps even a different love for each lover. But you have conflated sex and love, haven’t you? Or at least with that—that sense of being wanted that you have confessed to chasing. Beginning with Istredd.” Tissaia pauses and makes a quiet noise, but Yennefer’s throat is too dry, her body too numb, to respond. “The boy who saw you and wanted you before Giltine made you beautiful in the eyes of the world. You have derived a sense of worth from your sexual relationships—one you have not been able to find elsewhere, and so you believe—”

She stops abruptly. In the moment of silence that follows, Yennefer hauls in a breath, suddenly feeling pinned in. She pivots, knee bumping Tissaia’s thigh as she lowers her feet to the ground; Tissaia pulls away, giving her room, but Yennefer can feel her presence just there, hovering close—feels all the more attuned to her with the Chaos flooding her veins.

She’s right, of course; Tissaia is always right, somehow. Yennefer wants, once more, to scream, and rage, and sob, and to be held. Wants to disappear into Tissaia’s current and be consumed, despite her lingering and sundry misgivings. Because despite everything, Tissaia is her touchstone. And because, if she takes just a small step back from her life, examines the past seven decades with fresh eyes, eyes willing to see, the pattern is there, always cycling back to sex. With Istredd, with Geralt, with all the men and women who have worshipped her for more than a night or two in between. Even if their desire stemmed from beauty, she could believe it was born in her charm, and yes, for brief and shining moments, she had felt wanted. Not for power, and not for beauty. Just wanted.

Tears spark in her eyes, and a strangled, frustrated sound worms its way out of the back of her throat. The hair by her ear is displaced again, and she turns her face up towards Tissaia, teeth clenched, refusing to pull away. Fingers ghost against her cheek; Yennefer stubbornly works her jaw. Try as she might, she can’t bring herself to be angry anymore, not at Tissaia, and she knows it shows. She is angry at many things and many people, yes—herself more than any—but not Tissaia, not the incomprehensible woman standing by her. She does feel many other things for Tissaia though—unfathomable, unnameable things—and the emotions well up inside of her so rapidly, so fiercely, she fears she might succumb, drown, or maybe explode.

“My dear,” Tissaia murmurs, palm warm against her cheek, “Know that I do not require your body.”

And that’s quite another quandary, because Yennefer very much wants Tissaia’s. She latches onto this, a handhold grasped out of desperation. The culmination of everything—that Tissaia does care for her after all, how wrong she’s been, the examination of her past—will drive her mad with emotion if she doesn’t have something else to cling to. She breathes unsteadily through her nose, tilting her face slightly into Tissaia’s hand as a thumb strokes gently across her cheek. She reaches out for her with her mind, trying to ascertain her thoughts for reasons she can’t quite identify, and gets a sharp rebuff for her efforts. She winces slightly at the way it makes her head sting, but then, suddenly, both of Tissaia’s hands frame her face and she’s met with a web of emotions so tangled she loses her sense of direction; she’s swept dizzily into them as they clash with her own, raveling, mingling, confusing. It’s too much, too fast, but she refuses to close her mind off to them: refuses, because accompanying the maze of thought and feeling is _warmth_ , the likes of which she has neither felt nor imagined, uncertain and flickering, but present. _This_ , she decides, she would let consume her.

She closes her eyes, takes a long, steadying breath, and sighs it out again. Finds herself trembling slightly. Tissaia retreats back into herself, and as the tide of her washes away Yennefer feels empty despite her own racing pulse, despite the complexities of the sentiment tangled up in her own mind, filling every bit of her to bursting.

She shivers. Grips the arms of the chair and works her jaw, gazing into empty space.

“What if I want yours?” she finds herself asking at last, voice steadier than she expects it to be when she lifts her hands to wrap her fingers lightly around Tissaia’s wrists. “What if I still want everything?” The words catch; her tongue feels sticky. “What if ‘everything’ is all of you?”

For a moment, it’s quiet. Tissaia lowers her hands; Yennefer follows them and Tissaia lets her, doesn’t pull away when Yennefer shifts her grip to hold more easily to her. Yennefer buffs her thumbs against Tissaia’s wrists, face cast down now, eyes wide and searching as Tissaia’s arms hang limp, wrists balanced across Yennefer’s fingers.

“Then I would ask you to take some time to examine that desire,” Tissaia murmurs at last, pulling back just a little, just enough.

Yennefer frowns, lifting her face again. “Why?” she asks. Because she thinks her desire, if nothing else, has always been straightforward, even when she longed more than anything to cast the desire aside.

There’s barely a moment of silence before Tissaia replies. “Because I would not see you hurt again.” A beat—and then, quietly: “And because I cannot bear the thought of being the one to hurt you.”

The unspoken _again_ somehow rings in the air between them, and Yennefer swallows hard against the knot in her throat.

“Now go, please. Rest.”

Yennefer hesitates for only a moment before complying, pushing herself slowly to her feet. When she reaches into the space Tissaia previously occupied, she is gone.

“Tissaia?” she asks, hand hovering in the air in front of her.

She must have moved into the opposite armchair, for her voice comes from further away when Tissaia replies, very simply but impossibly gently, “ _Go_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have noticed (ha) this fic is... heavy, and takes a lot of energy to write and just as much if not more to edit. I know i was very good about updating every week for the first several chapters, but please bear with me henceforth. This might be closer to the time frame it takes for coming chapters, honestly.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our lord and savior Nenneke makes a reappearance, and the girls have a very big chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *author screaming incoherently in the distance*
> 
> (thank you all for sticking with me)
> 
> A general CW here for some detailed anxiety discussion.

Tissaia waits out the sunrise in the library, gazing into the cool hearth, a chill sinking slowly into her bones even as the light increases outside the single narrow window. Eventually she moves over to the fireplace, finding the striker and kneeling beside it to put her hands to use. There is little in the way of kindling, save the small bits of the clean-burning wood reserved for this particular hearth, and it takes some time to stoke the fire back to life, but it is as welcome a use of her energy as anything. Once the wood is burning steadily again, she closes the fine mesh screen around the hearth, replaces the striker, and paces the wall of books opposite for a while.

By midmorning, she has decided with some conviction that parting ways is not the answer after all. What possessed her to even make the suggestion, she does not know. She is not a sentimental woman, has spent many lifetimes in a callous effort to strip such traits from her being, but she is not blind—she knows that she and Yennefer have come a great distance, here, together. That they have begun, at least, to bridge a chasm of misunderstanding and pain formed decades ago and widened over time. To part now would be disingenuous at best, catastrophic at worst. It is not, she thinks, something they could return from. Tissaia has walked a lonely path for too many years to count; but that is not a life Yennefer is suited for. Tissaia's intentions in suggesting they part ways had been good, but now she can only imagine the staggering disconnect Yennefer must feel as a result.

Perhaps it's egotistical to presume that leaving would impact Yennefer in a negative way, but Tissaia has never been humble, and she does pride herself on her ability to read people. The fact is, they have shared much here; she has seen Yennefer at her most vulnerable, and has bared herself to Yennefer in return. If the younger mage craves a human connection, then she has found it.

A little distance, however, seems necessary and wise. This is proven readily enough: what has transpired between them is like a wound Yennefer cannot stop favouring, stitches she cannot resist plucking at when they are together. To leave would mean to undo a great deal of progress, but for now Yennefer needs _time_ —just a little, just enough. Enough to come to terms with herself and with… _this_. Whatever _this_ is, growing between them and stifling Tissaia with its presence.

Perhaps Tissaia needs a little time and distance of her own.

So she relegates herself to other parts of the temple for the day. Explores the ramparts while the sun is high; tucks herself away in the greenhouse later on.

She has explored the greenhouse and gardens to her heart's content by now, but the surroundings are comfortable, warm and full of life, and a reminder of her classroom at Aretuza. She winds slowly through the various plants, taking her time; there is no need to hurry.

“Are you well?”

Tissaia startles at the voice, but makes a fair show at being unaffected. She glances up from the bloom she is inspecting, meeting Nenneke’s eye from across the greenhouse.

“You know as well as anyone,” Tissaia remarks, taking a step in Nenneke's direction to examine another plant. 

Nenneke clicks her tongue. “Do not play coy with me. Come.”

If anyone ever learns how swiftly Tissaia bends to the will of an old priestess, she'll be finished. But bend she does, not least of all because she does respect the woman as an equal in her own right. She is a matriarch, skilled in her craft and respected and begrudged in equal measure by differing parties—a force to be reckoned with. And Tissaia owes her no small debt of gratitude for saving her life, and Yennefer's. Aside from the healing she and the other priestesses have provided, she has kept their presence here quiet—no small feat, hiding away two of the most powerful women on the Continent, in their own rights.

The truth is, when she thinks on it now, she does not know how she made it to Yennefer's side at Sodden except through sheer force of will—the same will that carried her from the woods back to the hill. Yennefer's portal had damaged whatever equilibrium Tissaia had left; when she had tried, Tissaia had not even been able to stand. The only small blessings of the encounter were that Yennefer had lost consciousness again mere seconds after discovering where they were, and that one of the Temple novices had spotted them from a window. By then, the dimeritium had well and truly taken hold; her limbs were heavy, and moving at all was laborious at best. Suffice it to say, she has weighed the circumstances, and she doubts she would have survived long had they arrived anywhere else on the Continent.

The presence of two bloody, mud and soot-crusted women just outside the temple gates had, of course, created a stir. They had soon enough been set upon by no less than five women and girls—the exact details remain hazy. She does know that the hours and days that followed were unpleasant at best, torturous at worst. It seems she barely left the bathing chambers long enough to sleep, and eating had been out of the question. She had barely been able to keep water down.

Now, after weeks of treatment, Nenneke stands at her side, head bent forward, one hand firm against Tissaia’s chest, the other behind her back, and Tissaia breathes deeply without being asked; the breath elicits a cough, and the priestess makes a thoughtful sound at the slight rattle in Tissaia's chest, but says nothing.

A long silence passes as Nenneke begins her own inspection of a nearby work table.

A thought has been with Tissaia for some time, and it plagues her now. In part, because there are finally tangible results to her recovery; in part because, though she will not admit it, she feels she owes it to Yennefer.

“Mother,” she says, leaning on the woman's title out of respect, “if there were no risk of necrosis—if your priestesses were free to focus exclusively on Yennefer's vision—how long do you expect it would take to heal her eyes?” She is not one to dance around an issue, and she learned quickly Nenneke does not appreciate the political game of cat and mouse, so she gets right to the point, though she does not see fit to reveal her intentions just yet.

Nenneke's brows arch at the question, and she gazes pointedly at Tissaia for a moment; if Tissaia did not know better, she might think the woman was attempting to read her thoughts.

“I could not say; such magical damage remains quite foreign to us.”

Tissaia watches the woman carefully. They may go about it differently, but magic is magic; Chaos is, always will be, Chaos, even when harnessed in different ways. “Our magic—that of mages—benefits from specificity and focus, Nenneke. Does yours not?”

Nenneke frowns. She is sharp, even in her advancing years. Sharp and dry and unforgiving, never has subscribed to the view of a matronly healer the title “Archpriestess of Melitele” has always, in Tissaia's memory, seemed to evoke. “Know this, child: I will personally toss you out of this temple on your ear if you should do anything to set your own healing back.”

Tissaia does not say that she has lived _lifetimes_ longer than the aging woman beside her—says nothing, because they have been here, walked this road already. Because, by Nenneke’s reckoning, all are children of the gods, and because Tissaia is of no mood to argue theology. Certainly not with a woman who has proved that _belief_ is a powerful thing indeed.

She has no qualms with Melitele or her priestesses. But although she no longer has any intention of parting ways with Yennefer just yet, it is well past time that they moved on from here.

She _itches_ for the halls of Aretuza. For the safety of habits built over centuries. There are many things she does not miss—the endless onslaught of political and interpersonal headaches come to mind—but the place is part of her, and it is the fulcrum upon which the Continent rests. She has been deftly manipulating the strings of the world for so long, sitting idly here feels…

She doesn’t know _how_ she feels.

And perhaps that is the most discomfiting thing about being here, away from the endless political manoeuvring that has become her day-to-day over the past several lifetimes: she is not certain what to make of herself when she is truly alone, away from the machinations that drive the political spheres. Not now, not anymore.

Here, she is not Tissaia de Vries, Rectoress of Aretuza, larger and stronger than her own skin and bones. Here, she is someone unrecognisable as herself. Here, she has needs and wants; here, she feels in ways previously forgotten, whether by accident or design.

And here, of course, she lacks access to her magic—magic she has known and held within her being for centuries. Magic that is part of her. Magic that accompanies her in waking and in sleeping, whether she is actively channeling Chaos or not.

Here, she is only Tissaia: weak and ill and relying upon the aid and grace and _silence_ of those around her. For herself; for Yennefer.

Whether Yennefer will be willing to stay at Aretuza past her healing, she also does not know. But at the moment, that seems unimportant. She can only maintain so long a view where Yennefer is involved, notoriously unpredictable as she is.

She blinks evenly at Nenneke, allows her lips to pull into the faintest of demure smiles. “Of course.”

Because she will not overexert herself—not in a way that will endanger her, at any rate. She may have dedicated centuries of her life to the Continent, but she is not so selfless to throw her wellbeing to the wind needlessly. Yennefer will be fine. Yennefer _is_ fine. She will regain her vision, one way or another, as Fringilla regained the use of her hand all those years ago, if Tissaia has to wrench out her own spleen to make it happen.

But not now; not yet.

* * *

The attacks come at night, mostly—those ripplings of anxiety that surge to the surface and leave her breathless, heart racing and body drawn tight as a bowstring. They tend to culminate in asthmatic episodes, though only one was severe enough to remark on; it had ended with Yennefer curled behind her, nose buried in her hair as Tissaia breathed, just breathed, waiting for the medicine to take effect. The one time those doubts had risen unbidden during the day, she had secluded herself in a quiet corner and waited it out with closed eyes, a pounding heart, and trembling limbs.

The experience is new, at least as far as the last few hundred years of memory are concerned. It calls back yet again to her past—to a time when Tissaia was no longer Skylark, but not yet Tissaia de Vries. After her Conduit moment, but before her remaking was complete. And later, as she prepared for Initiation, examining her prospects, spurred to panic by the idea of serving a king when she had barely looked into the eyes of a man in years.

The nightmares come too, of course, spurred as much by memory as by the anxiety over her current situation. Yennefer sleeps like a stone when she does sleep, even during her nightmares, so she knows little of Tissaia’s own. Only that she dreams of dimeritium—a half-truth, at best, but an accurate enough summation.

The night after that particular nightmare—the touch, the kiss, the library—hours of thought and yet another attempt at whatever words were required to bridge the sudden, new chasm between them—that night is uneventful, though Yennefer is restless in her bed, seems on the verge of speaking for hours until she finally finds rest. But the second night, after two days comprised mostly of quiet between them, Tissaia wakes from dreams of present and future so vivid that they follow her into consciousness, clinging to her mind like vodniks with grasping fingers around her limbs, her neck.

And she knows, she _knows_ that fretting is useless and that this is the last thing her body needs, but she is learning that this anxiety is not rational and does not attend to reason.

Instead it consumes, while the still, calm part of her mind tries fruitlessly to wrest back control.

And so, she lies there, body wound taut and breath coming in shallow gasps, head pounding, heart racing. Because suppose, just suppose, that the dimeritium inside of her is never vanquished, that she is never restored to her power, or that Yennefer never regains her vision and holds Tissaia accountable for the loss, or that Nilfgaard rises again from the battle at Sodden and strikes a blow against the North that ends it all—for Aretuza, for the Continent, for every bit of balance she has fought so hard to maintain for centuries. Suppose all that death was for nothing, that centuries of careful political manoeuvring and alliance-building and machinations were for nothing.

She is light-headed despite lying down; and then, just as she begins to wheeze, lungs rebelling against her rapid, shallow respirations, Yennefer stirs in the darkness beside her.

She tries to close herself down, does her best to silence the ragged breaths, to still her racing heart, but if logic was not enough embarrassment certainly isn't. A whimper forms in her throat just as Yennefer sits up in bed, body bathed in the dim light of the flickering fire.

“Tissaia?”

She is concerned, and that knowledge does nothing to quell Tissaia's raging thoughts. If anything, she feels _guilty_. She swallows hard, and presses her face into the pillow beneath her head, hugging it to herself with clenched fists. Shuts herself down, wills Yennefer to ignore her, to go back to sleep.

But moments later, a hand grasps at her, fingers curling into the fabric at her side. Tissaia shifts reflexively, but her muscles are already tense; a cramp begins to pull at her side. Yennefer moves, sends that same hand searching; it lands heavily on Tissaia's arm as the bed shifts beneath her weight. She is close, so close, body skimming across Tissaia's as she moves over her.

“I know you don't want me right now, but let me help you.” Tissaia only just hears the words, and she wants to take Yennefer's face into her hands and tell her she's wrong, to shake her and ask her how a woman so clever could think something so wrong. Because Tissaia has wanted her, in some way or another, since before she laid eyes on her—since she felt the Chaos clinging to her, since she was a frightened girl in a pig pen. She had wanted her as a student then, felt the potential, wanted to _teach_ her. And when she had proven her potential, Tissaia had itched to have her as a protégé; Sabrina had been clever, and a favourite, certainly, but she had no passion, no drive outside of perfection itself. 

Now she wants something different, but Yennefer is still at the centre of it all. Yennefer, who is half draped over Tissaia's body now from where she crawled over behind her—knee balanced against her hip, breasts pressing softly into Tissaia's back and arm, one hand curled around Tissaia's lower arm, the fingers of the other stroking her hair. Yennefer, who she will never have because she has nothing at all to give her that she has not already, and she _knows_ , she is certain, that Yennefer wants many things that she will never let on to—things Tissaia would never be able to give.

The panic spirals into a wild ache, and then a curious numbness, an at-first unsettling sort of stillness.

But Tissaia knows the calming spell for what it is, and while she would normally consider the use of it on another person impolite at best, she cannot find it within herself to fight it for long.

Instead, she takes a cautious breath as quiet floods her mind, silencing the intrusive thoughts one at a time. Her lungs are tight, a wheeze in her chest, but it's been worse, and the breath itself is not much of a struggle. She breathes again, counts down the seconds between inhale and exhale, and clings to the stillness. 

Yennefer's hand has found Tissaia's; her thumb massages gentle circles across Tissaia's palm. Coming back to herself, hyper-aware of the tension in her body, Tissaia tries to relax, wills the tension away from her hand, then her arm. Yennefer seems to follow the path, hand trailing up along Tissaia's wrist, fingers pressing softly into her skin, kneading at her bicep next. 

The calming spell is still working at her, and perhaps it was a little strong, because Tissaia feels a bit lightheaded, panic and tension ebbing away. Still, she'll need her medicine, so she reaches out in the darkness, grasping for the vial of herbs. Yennefer's hand moves to her shoulder, then her spine as Tissaia levers herself up to her elbow and presses a little of the herbal mixture into her cheek. She settles to wait the medicine out, leaning back into Yennefer's hand.

“Your spell,” she mumbles. She has just enough wherewithal to be horrified at the sluggish nature of her own voice.

“I'm not sorry,” Yennefer mutters stubbornly as her hand slides across Tissaia’s shoulder blade, arm wrapping around her again.

Tissaia scoffs half-heartedly as Yennefer drags her close, and Tissaia can feel herself melting back into Yennefer’s body, limbs giving way. When she begins to speak, her voice drags out of her, words slurring. “Hmm. ‘twas very… effectual.”

“Okay. Maybe I'm a little sorry,” Yennefer concedes, nose nestled in Tissaia's hair, thumb stroking circles across her skin again. “But you didn't respond to my first attempt.”

And she can't fault her for that, not really. Not when her head is spinning and Yennefer's body is incredibly warm and the bitter herbs are working to loosen the tightness in her chest. So rather than chastising her for the use of not one, but two charms against her, rather than seeking any amount of physical distance, rather than resisting the effects of the compounded spells, she turns her face into the pillow and, before she knows it, she is asleep.

* * *

Yennefer wakes with soft hair tickling her nose and lips. With her arm wrapped around a small body, the other numb, outstretched beneath her head, wrist cocked against the wall.

Tissaia's breath is slow and steady against her breast, but Yennefer knows now, by the depth of it and by the stirrings of her Chaos, that she is awake.

She wants to stretch, body aching with the need for it, but settles for bending her numb arm, flexing it, allowing the sparking tingle in her hand to shift and dance across her fingers. Tissaia makes a small noise, alert to her awakening.

“Yennefer?”

If the sound of Tissaia's breathing tells Yennefer whether she is awake or asleep, it seems senseless to feign sleep to gain a few minutes longer, so Yennefer shifts her weight a bit in the bedding, not withdrawing from the warm, flat plain of Tissaia's back, but giving the blood a little more freedom to reach her fingertips. She gives in to the temptation to stretch her body too, at least a little, curling her back enough to elicit a quiet cracking in her spine.

Tissaia sighs softly and shifts in the bed, her shoulder pressing back into Yennefer's for a moment before she turns in Yennefer's arms. Yennefer's body aches in the absence of her warmth when she settles mere inches away again, but the hand that travels from the inside of her elbow up to cup her cheek is familiar and light—and then, impossibly, and seemingly out of nowhere, Tissaia murmurs: “Of course I want you, foolish girl.”

Yennefer freezes, struck dumb as her sleep-addled brain attempts to process these words without context. And she remembers, _I know you don't want me right now,_ spoken out of desperation, because hadn't Tissaia made it clear that it was true: that she had no desire to be close to Yennefer, that distance was required? Yennefer won't claim she's _proud_ , per se, but she's done a commendable job of allowing Tissaia her space, and even of giving herself the opportunity to distance herself from some of her immediate wants and focus on what lies beneath. This is strange and new. It's not as if she's useless at critical thinking, but she does know and own that she is impulsive, and brash, and acts on instinct—and not only that, but while she is happy to analyse others, she does not frequently turn the same analytical eye to her own desires and emotions.

And what she knows now is this: she has always wanted something of Tissaia. At Aretuza, her approval; her razor-sharp grace; her indefinable power. In Rinde, although she never could have confessed it, her blessing; her body. (Experience had long since taught her to put the name _lust_ to the stirrings within her.) At Sodden, her guidance; her approval, but not in the same, desperate way she had craved it as a student.

Now she finds, inexplicably and without her willing it, that what she wants is the woman herself. Her sharp edges and the wealth of compassion she has secreted away deep within. Her wisdom, her power, her idealism. The well of Chaos, vibrant and vital and trembling just beneath her carefully-constructed veil of control. Her cool hands, her soft lips, her narrow body. The rise of her breast and her throaty laughter and all of her secret softness and stubborn strength.

And so, swallowing the knot in her throat, Yennefer places her hand over the other woman’s wrist, Tissaia's fingertips tracing familiar paths along the apple of her cheek, her temple, her brow. Holds her wrist and wets her lips and murmurs softly: “And I want you.”

Tissaia makes a quiet noise, almost of disapproval, and when she goes to pull her hand away Yennefer holds more tightly. “Don't,” she musters, but adjusts her grip, letting Tissaia's hand slip away until her fingers are curled around the woman’s palm. “You asked me to examine my desires. I have.” She says this fiercely, as if all the world depends on it. In a way, it does. “I _know_ what I want.”

Tissaia is still for a long moment—so still Yennefer can hear that there is still a subtle wheeze lingering in her lungs, barely audible when she breathes. She seems to yield, the tension in her arm melting away; Yennefer draws Tissaia’s hand forward again, until it is pressed against her chest. For a moment, the touch lingers. And then, when Tissaia frees herself from Yennefer’s hold, her fingers travel lightly upward, thumb against her jaw, fingers curled behind her neck.

“Then listen,” she says quietly, but with no less gravity than at Sodden, on that hilltop. “Hear me.”

Yennefer does not have to see Tissaia's face to feel the weight of the words, and so she swallows again and schools herself to listen. “I hear you,” she says softly, making it a vow when she says it.

There's the slightest pressure of Tissaia's fingers against her neck, the quietest hum of approval, and then silence for a long moment. Yennefer lets it pass, struggling against the temptation to speak, willing herself to be patient and quiet.

“I am not a… _romantic_ person,” Tissaia confesses at last.

She has never sounded so uncertain; this and the words themselves spark unbidden emotions. It seems to Yennefer an illogical statement, a nonsensical sentiment if what Tissaia has said before is true; if the feelings that flooded her just days ago are to be believed. “That doesn't—” 

At Tissaia's subtle gust of breath, she cuts herself off, clenching her teeth; she does not need to be reprimanded to know that she has already verged on breaking her word without even a minute passed. Tissaia's thumb seems to worry at her jaw as Yennefer levels herself, willing herself to listen as she said she would.

“I don't understand,” she says at last, firmly, doing her best to make it something other than an accusation.

“I don't expect you to.”

Yennefer barely resists scoffing at the cryptic statement. “You said—”

“I have said a number of things, and meant each one.”

“Still keen to bed me then?” She asks automatically, at once facetious and wanting.

And she has probably grossly underestimated Tissaia's patience in the past, because as Yennefer lingers there, irritated and just barely willing to allow this woman to drag her down another tangle of riddles, Tissaia simply strokes her thumb across Yennefer's jaw and then lowers her hand, palm against Yennefer’s collarbone.

“I've had a great deal of sex, Yennefer. Often with friends. Some of whom I cared for deeply. With you, it would be no different.” At this, Yennefer does scoff: how can she not, with Tissaia comparing her to past lovers? But Tissaia continues, either unaffected or unwilling to stop now. “But romance? People speak of being _in love_. Such casual and effortless touch, and kisses, and acts I—curling together for _hours_ by a fire,” she finally supplies, as if the concept of any such behaviour is utterly foreign and ridiculous to her; Yennefer manages a brief chuckle at the absurdity in her tone. 

“It can't be that bad.”

“I don't suppose it is,” Tissaia replies after a beat. “But lifetimes have taught me that I am not that woman. That I will never be ‘in love.’ And that I would not make a good partner.”

Yennefer blinks at the final words, biting back a retort; the statement is matter-of-fact, but something in the energy twisting between them feels resigned. And that seems unfair, because Tissaia has so _much_ to offer; Yennefer is not afraid to admit that now.

“Who said I wanted a partner?” Yennefer asks—and it's the same question she would have asked automatically, but without the biting wit. Instead, she makes her tone light, tries to give the words a little levity to alleviate the weight of the declaration.

But Tissaia only sighs, leaving Yennefer to imagine the weary roll of her eyes, the minute shake of her head. “You asked for everything, Yennefer. If sex alone is everything to you, that is fine. But i have lived long enough, known you long enough, to know better than that.”

Yennefer wonders just how much of _herself_ Tissaia sees—wonders if she has indeed seen through her veneers and her masks and her charades over all these years, if she can perhaps see something of Yennefer that Yennefer cannot. Wonders if she can put a name to the gaping chasm within her, the ocean of longing.

Because Yennefer has been telling herself for decades that romance is absurd, the inclination towards it silly and juvenile—has been telling herself since Borch Three-Jackdaws laid the truth out before her that wanting any connection of the sort was ridiculous, and an exercise in futility and self-sabotage.

And yet…

And yet, with Tissaia so close, her quiet breaths mingling with Yennefer's own, a connection seems…

Well, it inspires something of a panic is what it does, but something about it feels natural too. Like she's been spiraling towards this for most of her years, like somewhere along the way her destiny was tied to Tissaia's—like somehow, invariably, regardless of their opinions on the matter, they will always be drawn together again. Not like the djinn though, not like the will of another body enacted on her own. Like it's simply meant to be.

And of course, her impulse is to rebel. She has been rebelling against it for decades, unable to name the thing that always draws her back. But if the past weeks have taught her anything, it is that destiny, while a great thorn in her side, is also perhaps not as terrible as she once thought.

At the very least, they are here together. For all that circumstances beyond their control brought them here, for the first time she senses clearly that she has the ability to craft her own destiny.

And so, Yennefer finds Tissaia's wrist, curls her fingers around it. Brings Tissaia's hand carefully to her face to press a crooked kiss against the curled fingers, and then more squarely into her smooth palm. The Chaos between them courses with thrumming energy when Tissaia exhales a swift breath.

“If I asked you for everything,” Yennefer begins, because she is here now, and even if she could see a way out she would not take it, “what could you offer?”

“Very little, I'm afraid.”

Yennefer casts her eyes upward helplessly, again unable to search the other woman's face, again wishing she could see what lies behind her eyes. But her Chaos is a telling sort of tremulous that takes Yennefer back once more to the bonfire at Sodden.

“Come now, Tissaia. I know better than that. There's so much of you. You have so much to give.” She means to mask the sincerity of all this behind a playful tone, but by the end she is no longer bantering, means it with every fibre of her being.

“Perhaps,” Tissaia murmurs, voice thin and quiet as her hand moves to touch Yennefer's cheek again. “Yet I fear all I have to give would still not be enough.”

“Do you think me that voracious?” Yennefer only half jokes. Half, because it is probably true.

“I think you are a woman with desires. Desires which are many and varied. And I know that I have learned, over time and through a great deal of experience, to satisfy only some of those desires.” Tissaia pauses for a moment, her hand once again cupping Yennefer's face, thumb tracing along the line of her jaw. “I have taught myself to enjoy certain acts. A kiss, for example,” she adds in little more than a whisper. “Intimate and chaotic, and messy. As a part of sex, it comes naturally. But a kiss hello or goodbye? Those casual touches between lovers? Most touch that is not utilitarian, outside of sex, outside of circumstances which are… _extenuating..._ ”

And Yennefer can't help but scoff lightly at this choice of words, because there is no way the present brush of Tissaia's fingers against her skin is _utilitarian_. “Have the past weeks been an extenuating circumstance?”

A gust of breath which Yennefer takes for a half-hearted laugh leaves her, and Tissaia withdraws her hand, but remains close. “Perhaps not the appropriate word for this, no. And yet.” She pauses, and Yennefer can feel her gathering her thoughts in the rippling between them. “You had a need,” Tissaia adds after a moment. “I was satisfied to meet it. I _am_ satisfied to meet it.”

Yennefer's head spins with this assertion, emotions scattered and uncertain. What are her reasons for feeling _satisfied_ in these endeavours? Is it a matter of Tissaia's nature, a gentler aspect of her need to hold all the cards? Or a genuine, unimpeded care for Yennefer herself? She dreads the former, hopes for the latter. Believes fully that it could be both, that Tissaia, of all people, is capable of such distinctly opposing paradigms at once. Wonders if that's such a bad thing.

But there is no logic to it, to that desire to touch, that purported satisfaction. Not in light of her previous words.

“I still don't understand,” she says. Ignores the fact that her voice is, inexplicably, a little tight. If Tissaia notices, she says nothing of it.

Instead, she exhales another short, gusting breath and murmurs, seemingly out of nowhere: “Tell me about the Witcher.”

Yennefer tenses automatically at the words, brows furrowing, a frown pulling at her mouth. “What is he to you?” she asks, finding herself suddenly, inexplicably on the defensive.

“You’ve made mention of him,” Tissaia says softly, reasoning.

“There's nothing to tell.”

There's a beat of silence before Tissaia sighs again, and Yennefer can feel a palpable tension between them swell, and then bleed away. 

“I do not ask to provoke you,” Tissaia says. “As a friend, and interested party… tell me of him.”

Her voice is so calm, even and coaxing, that Yennefer finds herself succumbing to the invitation, or request, or whatever it may be—it's impossible to know with certainty. She takes a deep, steadying breath. Shuts her eyes. Feels Tissaia's fingertips as they brush across her wrist.

“He seemed to care,” she finally says, decisively. “And I thought I loved him.” The irony of this makes her smile ruefully, or perhaps grimace. “But he bound our fates together with a wish, and I've since decided that love is for fools.”

“Have you?”

Tissaia's tone is impossible to interpret, yet Yennefer still feels compelled to answer.

“I have.”

She says it with certainty, but even as she does, she wonders if it is true. Can it be, with Tissaia so close they are practically sharing breaths?

There's a long silence between them, one that swells and settles. Not uncomfortable—they have become fairly comfortable in silence together, so far as Yennefer can tell—but perhaps uncertain. Yennefer knows Tissaia is thinking, finds herself wondering over the other woman's thoughts, sifting through the Chaos between them for clues.

“You use that word with such conviction,” Tissaia says at last, on a breath. “And such a… flexibility of meaning. One I cannot muster.”

Yennefer comes up short at the assertion, frowning in thought. “I,” she begins, but pauses immediately, swallowing, grasping for meaning. She thinks, however, that she is beginning to understand. That love, for Tissaia, is one fixed thing, though it may be felt differently for different people. That it does not come in shades of grey, that there are no half-loves. That things which are, perhaps, analogous to love should never be _called_ love. Her mind lingers for a moment on the distinct impression that Tissaia would never consider a sexual partner a lover, and her lips twist, in spite of herself, into a bemused half-smile.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head slightly against the pillows, gazing ahead toward Tissaia’s face as she sobers again. 

“Nothing. Just…”

The current between them leads her to reach out, to trace her hand up Tissaia’s arm to her shoulder, fingertips plucking absently at the material of her sleeping shift. It occurs to her that she has no idea what time it is, whether morning has broken, or if it is still in the early hours. 

Not that it’s terribly important.

“Kiss me,” she murmurs at last. Not a question, nor a demand, but direct and wanting.

It’s in that moment that Tissaia draws away, her Chaos pulling back. But Yennefer persists, fingers curling into Tissaia’s sleeve as she lies there unapologetically.

“Have you listened to a word I said, Yennefer?” Tissaia’s voice is tight, her body rigid.

And yes, _yes_ for once she has. “I listened, Tissaia,” she says, makes it a promise that what Tissaia is offering is enough. “Every word. I heard you. I hear you. Now kiss me.”

There is a moment of utter stillness and quiet. A brief and blinding moment, and then something unfurls between them, warm and bright, and Tissaia’s hand is cupping her neck and her lips are on Yennefer's, and Yennefer immediately melts into the touch, tilting her chin to lean into the kiss. In a moment, she is on her back, inundated in Tissaia's warmth, the soft heat of her mouth and her narrow body. 

But Yennefer has never been one to lie idly by—shifts her weight up and over instead, rolling them back in the opposite direction with her hand on Tissaia’s hip.

“Yenn—!” 

The rest of her name disappears into a sudden, strangled noise. The hand behind her neck moves—a prickling at her skin; a sharp tug at the material of her sleeping shift. A thump, as Tissaia’s body goes rigid, torso twisted, heavy against Yennefer’s palm.

Yennefer’s eyes widen as she realises her mistake—she'd forgotten how close Tissaia was to the edge of the bed last night, how she turned over in Yennefer’s arms, not rolled, how small the bed they lie upon. She reels instinctively backward, neckline of her shift cutting into her shoulder even as her own fingers press hard into the flesh of Tissaia’s side, fighting the sudden pull of gravity for both of them. Tissaia releases her just as suddenly as she seized her in the first place; catches herself up on the small table between their beds in an attempt to stop her fall, if the tell-tale sound of glass falling against wood is to be believed.

It's a great affair of awkward fumbling and grasping, but they do manage to get Tissaia settled back onto the mattress without injury. Yennefer budges over a little, propped up on one elbow, her free hand fisted in the bedding behind Tissaia’s body. There’s a beat of silence, and then Yennefer is breathless with a barely-subdued laugh, relief washing through her. 

“You alright?”

Tissaia huffs a breath as she wriggles further away from the edge of the mattress, effectively putting herself beneath Yennefer's body.

“Not very dignified,” the woman mutters.

Yennefer bites back another bark of laughter at Tissaia’s tone; she has the distinct impression the woman is trying and failing to sound grumpy—is proven right when, less than a breath later, Tissaia sputters out a laugh utterly unbefitting of the Archmistress of Aretuza.

For just a moment, Yennefer finds herself caught up in the sound—then she is laughing too, muffling the noise in the crook of Tissaia’s neck as she settles more squarely over the other woman. And if she thought having Tissaia in her arms, Tissaia’s back flush against her chest while the woman laughed was intoxicating, this is another thing entirely. Every inch of her thrills with the way Tissaia’s body moves in the laugh—with the brush of her breasts and the warmth of her breath and the way her hand settles easily against Yennefer’s ribs, as if it belongs there.

“You might recall,” Tissaia musters through her laughter, “it’s rather a small bed.”

Despite their shared mirth, Yennefer cannot help but notice the wheeze that catches up in her chest, the slight labour in her breathing. But it is as commonplace now as sharing a room with her, and their proximity has much more command of her sensibilities.

“I’ll be more careful,” she murmurs, and another brief chuckle greets her in reply as Tissaia’s hand slides upward from her side to cup her neck. Yennefer swallows, withdrawing enough to flash a roguish grin before their brows and noses touch, Tissaia’s breath warm against her face, her free hand coming up to frame Yennefer’s jaw. Yennefer’s own breath hitches, her body easing into Tissaia’s frame.

“Where were we?”

Tissaia exhales a noiseless laugh, hand moving against the back of Yennefer’s neck, warm and strong and sure. “Bolt the door.”

Yennefer forgets everything else, doesn't even make a glib remark about Tissaia's concern for privacy—doesn’t have a chance to, because the moment she rocks her weight to the side enough to reach out toward the door, closing her fist to magically block the entryway, Tissaia’s lips find her own again.

And oh, Yennefer has had plenty of sex with various people over the years, but she has never wanted them, not even Geralt, quite like this—like every fibre of her being is attuned to the wanting. She lowers herself until their bodies touch, until she can feel every movement beneath her, and everything else vanishes at the sound of their shared breaths and the movement of Tissaia's body. The flexing of the muscles in her neck when Yennefer's lips travel down along the tendon, the arch of her back when the slightly coarse fabric of her gown shifts against the bare skin beneath as Yennefer kisses her through it. Awake to and enlivened by texture and heat and sound and movement, she closes her eyes and fumbles freely. Tissaia's hand traveling up and down her shoulder, her fingers curled against Yennefer's neck, her name quietly murmured, the bright and tremulous and certain Chaos between them, are enough to spur her onward, tugging Tissaia's skirts up, fingers skimming across the arc of her calves, her thighs, the swell of her hip (Tissaia adjusts, frees the shift for easier movement as Yennefer's wrists ruck it up), kissing blindly along the curve of her thigh and on up. Tissaia's breath hitches, back arching, fingers tangling in her hair, and for a span that could be a moment or an hour, all the events of the past few weeks vanish into one singular act.

Yennefer does not need to see to know Tissaia is beautiful like this. Nor does she need her sight to know what the sudden cough, violent enough to send a spasm through the length of Tissaia's being, means. She is slow to move though, has to extract herself clumsily from between Tissaia's legs when the other woman rolls, closing her thighs, the briefest of pauses culminating in a coughing spell that wracks her whole body.

She has had spells like this before—spells seemingly brought on by a single cough, where one moment her breathing was fairly untroubled and the next, laborious. It seems a strange and unhappy phenomenon, but she is accustomed enough to these episodes to move toward the head of the bed, hand finding Tissaia's ribs after a moment of searching. She gives the other woman's side a squeeze as Tissaia takes a halting, grinding breath in, fingers digging into Tissaia's flesh perhaps more violently than she means at the alarm that rears up within her at the sound.

Tissaia grasps her hand suddenly, and it takes a moment for Yennefer to realise she is using her as leverage. She tugs, righting herself fully and reaching out with her free hand as Tissaia doubles over.

“Tissaia?” she asks, the concern in her voice more evident than she would like. 

“Hot water.”

“You sound terrible,” Yennefer says, impulsively voicing the thought as if it could alleviate some of the fear and tension. At the same time, she reaches a hand out toward the foot of the bed; on the opposite wall, several feet from the hearth, there is a narrow table with a washbasin. She has the basin in hand a moment later, sloshing a little water onto the bed. (If she feels, for just a moment, like a young girl, helpless and weak, she grits her teeth and focuses all her attention on the nearby fire and the basin half-full of water.)

By the time Tissaia has, Yennefer assumes by the shifting of weight on the mattress, retrieved her medicine from the side table, the water is hot enough to steam. Tissaia bends over it as the smell of herbs fills the air, back curled, breathing deeply. Or rather, breathing as deeply as she can around the violent coughs. She's close, shoulder brushing against Yennefer's body when she moves, and Yennefer reaches out, stretching her fingers out against Tissaia's back and pressing her palm firmly against her spine. She wets her lips, banishes the taste of Tissaia from her tongue, the heat of her body from her own, and listens and waits in pained anticipation.

She is attuned enough now to Tissaia's Chaos, and Tissaia is lacking enough in control, that her anxiety is palpable. Shutting it out is no good; she has plenty of practice shielding her own mind from others, but none at all in shielding herself from them. Heart racing, forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly by counting out the seconds between, she pushes it to the periphery of her consciousness, wondering briefly if this is anything like what Tissaia feels during a conduit moment: a sudden, unbridled connection from half a continent away.

She doesn't realise she has taken to rubbing small circles against Tissaia's shoulders until Tissaia sighs, wheezing, a weak cough following the breath.

“I do not require coddling, Yennefer,” she mutters, perhaps a little defensively.

“I'm not coddling,” Yennefer retorts automatically, sniffing. But in the next breath, her voice is softer, her hand gentle against Tissaia's back. “Are you alright?”

A beat, and then: “Heat the water again.” Yennefer bites back her frustration; as if she can sense it, as if it makes the situation more palatable, Tissaia adds, quietly: “Please.”

Yennefer is beyond teasing her for such words now, though she wouldn't admit to being softened by the request at all, least of all now. Whatever else is between them, of course, she would never sit idly by and allow Tissaia to suffer through this, so she reaches out, lets Tissaia guide her searching hand to the basin, and focuses her energy between the water and the fire again, careful to take a deep breath, manage her Chaos, warm the water without sending it boiling over.

Tissaia bends, and they sit in silence as she breathes, slow and careful, the wheeze and coughs alike gradually continuing to subside while the fresh waft of herbs mingles damply in the air around them.

“Okay?” Yennefer asks at last, a little awkwardly. She is painfully aware that, while she has worked many spells for healing and as boons, she has rarely had the occasion to approach them with much care. More often than not, the spells she has worked have been on behalf of some arrogant and entitled noble, or a townsperson she barely knew by face, much less by name.

She feels helpless in the face of Tissaia's illness, and it's a feeling she does not relish.

After a moment of silence, Tissaia hums a quiet reply, sitting back slightly and twisting her body. “I'm going to bathe.”

“That's not—” Yennefer begins, but cuts herself off with a click of her teeth, grimacing slightly as Tissaia pulls away. When the basin moves beneath her hand, she shifts her grip, making to grab it. “It's fine,” she says, concluding that the movement is Tissaia attempting to lift the basin and take it back to its rightful place. “I'll do it.” 

There's a moment of silence in which Tissaia seems to surrender control of the basin, and then, quietly, Yennefer adds: “I'll follow you.”

She's not entirely sure why she says it: perhaps part of her is still a little turbulent and uncertain; perhaps, even, having Tissaia so close has reawakened that quiet, unsure thing inside of her. Or perhaps it is simply a normal and expected progression of things. Either way, she speaks the words softly, and sighs out a quiet breath when Tissaia hums a wordless acknowledgement before moving away from the bed. Belatedly, Yennefer remembers her spell—reaches out with her mind to unblock the door; this time, Tissaia does not acknowledge the act at all.

Grinding her teeth at the sudden turn, Yennefer takes the basin carefully to the window, pushing back the curtains and sliding her hand along the pane until she finds the locking mechanism. The birds are not yet singing, which means it is still very late rather than very early. She spills the water onto the ground outside the window, shivering at the chill in the air, then withdraws and fumbles again for the lever which will lock the window back in place. She finds that the brisk air helps to clear her mind somewhat. Depositing the basin back in its place near the hearth, she makes her slow way down to the baths, immediately wandering towards the smaller, private room they have been using.

The air is heavy with herbs for the first time in a while, pungent but not unpleasant. She pauses in the doorway, making a brief game of picking out the herbs used while listening for Tissaia's breathing. Not troubled enough to be heard from where she stands. Good. There's the steady, quiet splash of Tissaia's bathing, but the other woman is otherwise silent. Yennefer pays it no mind, moves around the side of the bath towards where the steps are, but pauses to glance across the pool in Tissaia's direction.

“Tissaia?”

She does not need to ask how close she is to the edge of the pool, doesn't have to make her uncertainty plain, because after barely a beat Tissaia's voice returns: “Two steps. You're there.”

Yennefer pauses for a moment, not quite certain what the best approach to any of this, given all that has happened since she woke, but after a few breaths she shucks off her gown and lowers herself to sit by the pool, settling her feet on the top step before righting herself to enter the deeper water, moving a little closer to Tissaia as she goes.

“You scrub my back, I'll scrub yours?” she asks. She's never been so uncertain in her life, doesn't know where that brief time learning Tissaia's body leaves them, if Tissaia thinks it a mistake or something else entirely. Doesn't know if Tissaia's dismissive tone after was a product of her years of self-sufficiency or a reflection of her thoughts on what had happened. “Promise not to get handsy,” she adds with a smirk, confident that the doubt doesn't show.

Tissaia snorts quietly at the assertion, but the water around Yennefer's waist ripples as the other woman moves closer.

“Turn around.”

Yennefer does as she's asked, pulling her hair in front of her shoulder as she does, allowing Tissaia access to her back. This close, she can hear the more subtle wheeze, the shallow, even breaths Tissaia takes as she scrubs at Yennefer's back with easy efficiency. She tries not to shiver at the touch, lowers her head after Tissaia pushes a few loose strands of hair out of the way, allowing full access to the length of her back and neck. Tissaia's hands are sure and gentle as she washes the soap away, hands skimming down along her shoulders, her spine.

“There,” she says, voice low and quiet, and Yennefer does shiver at the undertone, turning and extending a hand.

“Now you.”

If she reaches out with her mind, she can just feel the uncertain ripple in Tissaia's Chaos. She doesn't remark, just waits. After a moment, the cloth is placed in her hand.

“It's soaped,” Tissaia says.

The quiet sound of the water moving around them tells Yennefer Tissaia has turned around, so she reaches out cautiously, fingertips finding Tissaia's scapula and then skimming upward to wrap gently around her shoulder. She starts scrubbing at the opposite shoulder, tries to make her movements as certain as Tissaia's own as the cloth travels up her neck and across, then down her spine, first the right side then the left.

Finished with the washing, she begins to rinse the soap away, hands guiding the water from her skin. An unnecessary gesture, certainly, but Tissaia has done so for her and does not complain—stands quietly instead, head bowed, breathing slowly. The soap-slick flesh beneath her hands is a universe of temptation, but she does her best to push those sensations down, breathing in, settling into the moment.

She is nearly done, so far as she can tell, when her fingers brush across a raised area of skin below Tissaia's ribs. The rough patch gives her pause; she notes peripherally that Tissaia tenses slightly beneath the touch as her fingertips begin to explore the area automatically, examining the blemish in the only way she has available to her at present.

The scar is too imperfect to be from a blade—not straight, nor even jagged, but rather curved and uneven, so it is not from a blade or arrow.

A burn?

For a moment, her heart catches in her throat; she had meant to save Tissaia from the spell that ended Nilfgaard’s assault; can she have failed without realising? (The rational part of her brain says no, again, she would have known if Tissaia were being treated for burns even if she had not been told; there has been enough touch between them, and she can recall no bandages at any point. Still, it is impossible not to imagine such possibilities with her throat dry and Tissaia's skin warm beneath her touch.)

“Is this from Sodden?” she asks, despite that she already knows the answer, heart racing with impossibilities.

“No,” Tissaia says after a beat—quietly, almost cautiously. 

Yennefer swallows hard. “Then—” But she cuts herself off, fingers tracing the swath of marred skin around Tissaia's side, where it curls across her waist, palm skimming the skin to cover the scar as she moves unconsciously closer, free hand trailing along Tissaia's back, searching out more blemishes, finding a rough area of skin she had not felt before and beginning the same exploration, lowering her face until a wisp of Tissaia's hair tickles her nose…

“Yennefer.”

At the warning in Tissaia's voice, Yennefer flinches away as if burned herself, clenching her fists and inhaling sharply. “Sorry,” she says, stepping back. A moment of silence passes; she can't quite shake the uncertainty, even contrasted with the want pooling within her. “This is… _stupid_ ,” she spits, grimacing at herself, at her runaway emotions, “but… Tell me I didn't do this.”

A beat, and then Tissaia chuckles, low and soft.Yennefer tenses reflexively, but if there is humour behind the sound at all, it is wan; there is no condescension in the act.

“They are much older than you, Yennefer,” Tissaia replies, matter-of-fact, but almost, _almost_ gentle in the reasoning tone.

Yennefer takes an uncertain breath, steadying herself and reaching out again, but pausing before her fingers brush Tissaia’s skin. There is an unspoken truth here between them, the shadow of a memory of a barn in flames and a terrified girl.

As if sensing her anxiety, Tissaia turns to face her; Yennefer draws her hand back, concerned for perhaps the first time in her life about overstepping her bounds. But Tissaia's hands frame her neck, thumbs stroking her jaw, and she swallows hard at the sensation.

“My dear,” Tissaia murmurs, the gentle pressure of her hands guiding Yennefer’s head down until their brows touch.

She wants to wrap Tissaia in her arms, pull her close, feel the flush press of their bodies, naked and warm. Wants it more than almost, almost anything, but stills and breathes and brings her hands up, fingers curling gently around Tissaia's forearms. Presses her brow a little more firmly to Tissaia's and sighs out the tension bound up within her.

“You saved me,” Tissaia says, voice hushed. It is not the first time the words have passed between them, but this time, Yennefer finds she is ready to receive them. “And I will never, _never_ forget that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miriam/justplainsalty/batardloaf, ty as ever for your kind help in betaing, and your invaluable help in putting a critical eye to the areas that were bothering me.


End file.
